Archive for the ‘Where's Mom?’ 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!
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Happy New Year: What Rhetoric Are You? Father, Mother, or Mediator
(1)
-
Mothers, supposedly — go to A battered MOTHERS conference. BMCC, New York, weekend of Jan. 6th-9th.
Look up “Battered Mothers’ Custody Conference” (8th year).
(2)
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Fathers, supposedly — should go to a FATHERHOOD summit (conference) . Minnesota, a Monday-Tuesday combo, January 24th-25th.
Possibly because Family Law professional attendees, can get professional CLE credit for attending on a weekday, while some people, attending, might lose a job for absenteeism. Pay close attention to the repetitive use of the word “father” throughout this conference, because in the 3rd one, some of the same characters are likely to be found at, or helping present at, or sponsor, etc. a conference claiming Gender has nothing to do with all this. (See #3, below)
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Thomas.loc.gov ~~ “The Little Engine that Could,” possibly Charge Uphill
This post is personal, philosophical, reflective, anecdotal, and doesn’t pretend to any scientific standard.
HOWEVER, this season, I do recommend U.S. Moms and Dads (and others) give themselves “The Little Engine That Could..” This is not a pep talk, but a search engine by the name oScreen Optionsf “THOMAS,” launched in 1995, and good thing, too!
About Thomas:
“Thomas” tells you what your elected representatives in the U.S. Congress have said and have done. its syntax cannot be harder than a foreign language to learn. In responding to pleas (from women’s groups) in various states to help this or that railroaded family law case, using DV terms, I have time and again noticed that these same DV (Domestic Violence) nonprofit agencies persist in absolute ignorance of what’s going on in their own state affecting these cases, and has been for almost a decade. They speak only their own language, and debate only segments of oppositional languages. This is a distraction. Why should I spend my (precious) time helping people who are not coachable?
This same 104th Congress slipped through a welfare reform “addendum” that basically compromised the due process in the courts for an “outcome-based” legal process. It was a slick maneuver by “fatherhood practitioner” Ron Haskins (as I heard this), to divert TANF funding to bring back Dads in order to (ostensibly) collect/enforce child support.
This spawned all kinds of demonstration projects, subject BY LAW primarily to the Secretary of Health and Human Serivces. Following suit, various states appointed Fatherhood Commissions that are so thoroughly entrenched in government, only a fool (which we have been) would believe that court cases are won or lost on the evidence as compared to criminal laws, when criminal behavior has been identified. It took me almost losing my life (and losing a lot that was central to it) to somehow unearth this information — and comprehend the significance of it.
Domestic Violence is known to cause death, sometimes, poverty usually, and homelessness, a lot. It is one reason many women who have been involved with a partner separate from that partner, or try to. Our lovely government response to do this was to create parallel, and conflicting systems of grants (which basically cancel each other out), split the proceeds between cronies, and work with family court also, to split more proceeds examining and evaluating the failures these policies have created. The wording justifying what I just said is found at “45 CFR 303.109.”
http://cfr.vlex.com/vid/303-109-monitoring-funded-visitation-19934173
and the syntax “45 CFR 303.109” can be learned by anyone able to text “lmao” or “lol,” and is a good deal more useful..
I learned that my own government now defines what “family” is. (1995-1996 Congress):
S.1209 — Responsible Parenthood Act of 1995 (Introduced in Senate – IS)
S 1209 IS104th CONGRESS1st SessionSEC. 8. DEFINITION OF FAMILY.
Section 501(b) (42 U.S.C. 701(b)) is amended by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
`(5) The term `family’ means a child under the age of 19, the biological or adoptive parents of the child, the legal guardian of the child, or a responsible relative or caretaker with whom the child regularly resides, the siblings of the child, and other individuals living in the child’s home.’.
Probably it’s a good idea to speak the same language. Thomas.gov is where one can learn “GovSpeak,” and listen in on how elected leaders talk about the electorate (i.e., US).
We’d better learn about “PROWA” act, Title III, Subtitle “I” (alpha), Section 381.”
The day after tomorrow is the 15th anniversary of that particular conference report.
In my next “life,” I plan to schedule time to pay much better attention to politicians, in their own words — not from “CNN” or “Town Halls,” but on the record. The Congressional Record!
CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 4, PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK OPPORTUNITY ACT OF 1995 (House of Representatives – December 21, 1995)
Subtitle I–Enhancing Responsibility and Opportunity for Non-Residential Parents
Sec. 381. Grants to States for access and visitation programs.
HERE, “Enhancing Responsibility and Opportunity for Non-Residential Parents”
is 1997 Secretary of Health & Human Services, Donna Shalala’s form letter to Governors describing this (by now, Section 391, not 381) same subtitle welfare reform plan.
[OCSE heading reads:] Giving Hope and Support to America’s Children
Secretary, DHHS Letter to Governors
Grants to States for Access and VisitationThe Honorable
Dear Governor
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
of 1996 (P.L. 104-193) provides up to $10 million annually for grants
to the states for access and visitation programs. The authority
contained in Title III, Subtitle I – Enhancing Responsibility and
Opportunity for Non-Residential Parents (which adds Section 469B to
the Social Security Act) presents an opportunity to address problems
that have caused much pain and suffering for parents and children
alike.The statutory language contains very general guidance for states on
what are considered appropriate activities to be carried out with the
grant funds. The grants are “to enable states to establish and
administer programs to support and facilitate noncustodial parents’
access to and visitation of their children.” Eligible activities
include but are not limited to mediation, counseling, education,
development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement, and
development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody
arrangements.The amount of the grant for each state for a fiscal year will be an
amount equal to the lesser of 90 percent of State expenditures during
the fiscal year for eligible activities or an allotment. The
allotment formula derives from the ratio of the number of children in
the state living with only one biological parent in relation to the
total number of such children in all states. The amount of the
allotment available to the state will exhibit this same ratio to
$10,000,000. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) will
adjust the allotments to ensure that there is a minimum allotment
amount of $50,000 per state for fede
ral fiscal year 1997.The ACF is charged with the responsibility of issuing regulations
setting forth how states “shall monitor, evaluate, and report on such
programs.” Within ACF, program administration will reside with the
Office of Child Support Enforcement.States have considerable flexibility in determining appropriate
administrative arrangements. The grants may be used to create or
enhance state-run programs or to fund grants or contracts with
courts, local public agencies, or nonprofit private entities.
Programs do not have to operate statewide.{{this is where cronyism and backroom deals are invited in..}}
As a first step, we ask that you designate a single state agency with
whom we will interact on a continuing basis in launching and carrying
out this new responsibility. Again, the choice of agency is a matter
within your discretion.*** Your selection and the name and title of an
appropriate official within the designated agency should be
communicated in writing at your earliest convenience to David Gray
Ross, Deputy Director of our Office of Child Support Enforcement at
901 D street SW, 4th Floor Washington D.C. 20447.We look forward to fashioning a partnership in this new program, a
program with the potential to positively impact the lives of children
and their parents. {{Note pretense of gender neutrality.}}If any questions should arise, they may be
directed to Judge Ross at 202-401-9370.Sincerely,
Donna E. Shalala
***In hindsight, this is “brilliant” centralization of control, removing it yet further from the courts’ concept of “due process.” Congress, blaming poor mothers for their poverty, and the welfare program for its own existence, votes in language of fatherhood into public law. Anyone who failed to pay attention didn’t notice a single head of a single U.S. Dept (the Secretary) reaching to Governors, to a single state agency to radically transform business as usual. I hate to bring this up, but Congress is now, and was then, majority white (Caucasian) males. Men are not a majority in the U.S. (women are), and whites of either gender are not a majority on the globe. Nor would I expect that the average white male Congressperson has experienced poverty, even if his father did. I sincerely doubt that whites of any gender or nationality represent the bulk of the world’s poor, but it’s likely they have started the bulk of the world’s wars, and genocides, including some in Africa.
And I am getting tired of this. Let these people (Congress) practice what they preach! They preach “jobs” (certainly in this bill) but themselves have often inherited wealth. Their own jobs are on the backs of taxpayers. Foundations don’t pay taxes, nor do nonprofits. Accordingly (above) promising to “help” “the public.” (say, who??) they innately bond with their own and funnel grants to them, also. I’m tired of the two-tiered information system: One for those with savvy (& internet) and another for those still stupid enough to trust — versus monitor daily — their public servants to be as hardworking, ethical, or honest as those whose wages pay them.
At that (1997) time in my life, the words “welfare” meant being not shot, or stabbed, or slapped, thrown, etc. and learning to live with enough caution to avoid this. I was actually working FT, and learning Internet (self-taught) which was not safe to use at home while still married. Little did I know that even then, plans were in place to put back into our lives fathers who had committed crimes against us, because by virtue of showing up single and temporarily poor, a way to keep us permanently poor by compromising BOTH child support AND safety was winding its way through Congress, and into the courts (etc.):
The natural offspring of “National Fatherhood Initiative” and President Clinton’s 1995 Fatherhood Executive memo — let alone “fatherhood.gov,” and so forth, are state-based “Fatherhood Comissions.” I discovered Hawaii, then Ohio, and any googling fool can see that Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut, etc., are all ga-ga about “fathers.” And mothers go to court like lambs to the slaughter, unaware of how things work in their own government:
Here are just a few. I’m not even going to link them all for readers. A search takes only seconds — do your own!:
- MARYLAND: The Commission on Responsible Fatherhood was created by the Welfare Innovation Act of 2001 (Chapter 395, Acts of 2001). Its charge was to make Marylanders aware of the problems that face a child raised without the presence of a responsible father. Obstacles that keep responsible fathers from being involved in their children’s lives were to be identified and strategies to encourage responsible fatherhood were to be devised by the Commission.The Commission last met in September 2002.
- Major F. Riddick, Jr., Chair (chosen by Governor)Appointed by Governor: David A. Engle, 2002; Joseph T. Jones, 2002; Ronald B. Mincy, Ph.D., 2002; Jeffrey M. Johnson, Ph.D., 2003; David L. Levy, Esq., 2003; Elaine A. Anderson, Ph.D., 2004; Thomas R. Rider.Nominated by Senate President: one vacancyNominated by House Speaker: Rudolph C. CaneEx officio: T. Eloise Foster, Secretary of Budget & Management; Georges C. Benjamin, M.D., Secretary of Health & Mental Hygiene; {{“Mental Hygiene”??? Makes me shudder, almost}} Denese F. Maker, designee of Secretary of Human Resources; John P. O’Connor, Secretary of Labor, Licensing, & Regulation; Nancy S. Grasmick, Ph.D., State Superintendent of Schools; Bonnie A. Kirkland, Esq., Special Secretary for Children, Youth, and Families.
- FLORIDA — bone up on the language. Fatherhood Programs launched in multiple states (yet are supposedly “grassroots”?? When it’s not expected low-income, or court-litgating mothers are present, the language is strikingly honest.
:
According to the Urban Institute, about two-thirds of the nearly 11 million American fathers who do not live with their children fail to pay child support.1 Therefore it is no surprise that children who grow up fatherless are five times more likely to be poor.2
First Generation Fatherhood Programs
Fatherhood programs are not, in fact, new. The first large-scale program, Parents’ Fair Share (PFS), was launched in the early 1990’s, when the fatherhood movement was just beginning to take shape in the national arena. Although the program was largely a disappointment, its shortcomings have provided valuable lessons to a new generation of practitioners.
{{A new generation of “practitioners” — on whom? Of what? WITH what? This is symptomatic of what happens when public income is used to practice on the unsuspecting…Failure is no deterrent to trying again … at public expense…Money was diverted, and is still, from helping custodial mothers to failed projects on helping NON-custodial fathers. }}
The Parents’ Fair Share demonstration project was an employment and training program aimed at increasing the earnings of non-custodial fathers unable to pay child support due to lack of or low income. Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, and private sponsors, PFS opened its doors in cities in seven states: California, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennesse
If you’re going to do something government style, start big and fail big, and keep on failing — after all, the infrastructure (producing failure) represents a substantial investment. ….of OPM (Other People’s Money) .
OK, I cannot keep up this blog with this [slow, slow, laptop] computer, and as the years of my life spent on this issue of survival continue to spin forward. I am marking it at 18-20 years (one full generation) of stripping off values, family, income, and respect for nearly any institution I’ve sought help from.
I have come to the conclusion that the act of seeking help, in current climate, sends out an ultrasonic distress signal that attracts vultures and other predators with specially developed sonar to hear these calls. The language of “help” implies the right to refuse it, or to promise, and fail to deliver. No can do! !!! Swooping in, talking “advocacy,” they do indeed advocate — for programs endorsed by their nonprofit, agency, or foundation-funded goals, which are rarely more than a 50% match with the woman’s goals, which are to get HERSELF and her FAMILY (kids) free from abuse by specific personnel. AFTER which, she/they may go on to transform society, eradicate oppression, and stop all family violence – – — — if they choose to.
Most noncustodial women I know simply triumph by virtue of simply surviving (they are somehow still breathing), generally having lost contact with their children entirely after trying to protest legal abuse through the family law venue. Exhausted (and I’m just about there, too), they may not become zealots (or professionals) for the cause, but rather wish their own lives back, and a little privacy. It’s a shame, because otherwise, we could learn from their lessons more directly, rather than learn by theories developed in a far-off laboratory or website or conference.
Assuming my comment will be approved, I discuss this on a “RightsforMother” post called “DV by Proxy.” I was struck by the continual characterization women adopt — of themselves — as losers (of custody), battered, enduring abuse, suffering, and wrongly diagnosing their own problems! This was from a group (also specializing in the psychological terminology field) called “The Leadership Council,” whom I have already begged to drop the endless debates about “parental alienation” and instead pool some of their resources (resources I don’t have, despite having endorsed this language previously) to something more useful to women in my situation. Similarly, another g roup calling itself “Center for Judicial Excellence” refuses to address the money trail, and another one called “Family Violence Prevention Fund” is itself right on the money — receiving grants from the fatherhood movements in the name of “family” and (appropriately to this funding) just about deleting any positive usage, or graphic presence, of the word “mother” on their website. (see my 10-31-2010 post).
Look to nature for examples of how human beings behave at different times — the analogies really do apply!
Clumping together with others seeking help identifies one as part of a “bait ball,” and is bad advice.
Language is critical to freedom, and corruption of it is a supreme tool for stealing from others, for initiating war, and for maintaining systems of slavery. In order to perceive any set of parables or beliefs, one must be willing to step outside them and look with another set. As with spectacles / glasses, the combined lenses give a clearer picture.
Whoever (collectively speaking) spoke, wrote, assembled, and preached what is now known as “the Bible,” essentially, “The Book,” fully understood the importance of parables, authority, and systems of logic and language to unite people. Also going with this was a code of ethics, and one of the most negative assessments of human nature without “God,” seen almost anywhere. According to the Bible, people are helpless, clueless, corrupt, and in need of redemption from birth onwards. The history of bringing people “out of bondage” (Egypt) and calling them to become a new people is filled with prophets scolding recalcitrant children, and predicting their failure; they must just hold on til “the Christ” came and by virtue of believing their own savior would come, or on Him when he did come, or on him after he came — is their salvation. Apart from this, we are helpless babies.
I was not raised with this book, but looking at a family (one of the kind the government would laud to the skies, and pours millions into making sure that children have one), a nuclear family with adequate housing, education, and even college, based on a father’s income and a mother’s mothering, plus a public school education for most of the kids — even as an adolescent, I knew this was an ethically, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually bankrupt model.
Both my parents grew up poor, and by diligence and personal development (plus, I can say, elements of fortune), did what is called “well.” Like many such families who did “well,” after the nest was empty, my father, and many of his colleagues, dumped their faithful wives, who’d fulfilled their purposes, for a younger model — or at least a different model. Meanwhile, the kids who saw this cleared out, and took off separately. Such was the “nuclear” family in changing times. We split like ball bearings dropped on smooth glass, and went and became professionals.
My mother went back to school, and work, succeeding at that, and from what I can tell, never suffered financial lack the entire rest of her life. AND, never developed a passion in work, or a passion in life afterwards (as we children did). My father apparently (circumstances are still something of a mystery to me) responded to his divorce by trying on a number of different women (including a rebound wife), squandering a lot of what he’d earned, and finally resettled on my mother again. Then, a few days after retirement, he died suddenly. My mother never (that I know of) dated, remarried, or did a whole lot more than mildly exist in her communities.
As we had as a nuclear family, she existed, beautifully, and did things that women of her class did in those days. She did not communicate much, and had no particular wisdom to pass on to the next generation. Perhaps she got wore out from this particular husband. I see my mother as a shut-down woman, whose personality came out in certain circumstances, but was not really welcome in the family home.
The chief inheritance I can speak of is the example that there’s got to be something worth dedicating one’s life to besides profession, and that one can win much, and be a failure in life from another perspective.
Now I am close to the age at which she was dumped, however in a society which dumps certain mothers AS mothers, sometimes from the hospital, other than that, from the Early Childhood stages. Some classes are allowed to keep their children at home and nurture them, but most are not. Of those classes, chances are the stay-at-home dedicated mother (and I’ve known many of them, living in diverse communities — urban, suburban, etc. — over the years) will still be dumped, if not bankrupted, should divorce be done. Too often, that work is not valued, but her children are valuable, and the fights over them will fund another generation of family court professionals and their cronies. Fathers, expected to pay child support, will be recruited to get it abated through custody litigation aimed at preventing the welfare queen scenario. Kids will grow up — if they are lucky — without witnessing severe violence, repeated disruptions, or being farmed out to strangers (for pay) and neglected or abused in the process.
Mine have been. The restraining order that protected us briefly, long ago, was undone almost before it was out the gate. My family endorsed this, and gave what was a religious “shunning” for failing to switch abusers (rather than exit the abusive relationship). My kids’ child support was eliminated through custody switch, and I do believe that the father was exploited at a time of trauma for him, also, to enter into a custody fight when he didn’t even want the children. It took almost NO time for us to turn from two working parents who both had access to their children, me – because of a safety zone — being able to for once work in my profession, retain the income from it, and spend it without retaliation, and mostly on our children. I was allowed to make decisions about my own infrastructure (income-to-expense ratio, choice of housing, work, neighborhoods, associates) so as to become financially independent in work I loved, and had worked in prior to marriage; a scenario that allowed for parenting time and flexibility, because it was efficient.
The family of origin has never forgiven me for that — to date. I have been astonished, repeatedly, over the virulence. None of the family of origin has ever acknowledged any of the court rulings, verbally or in practice, but instead demanded I fork over my offspring, our offspring, as if they were for sale on the black market. The “rationale” for this was — solely — that I was a single mother. All other characteristics of the previous marriage, any academic or professional achievements (which were plenty enough), any work history, any LEGAL history (in the decade since), in fact virtually anything — is off the table for discussion.
While not a scientist, I have a healthy respect for “cause & effect,” and for whatever brief freedom from violence in my home that restraining order (much as I mock them as unenforceable, or certifiably insane — which they are — they DO sometimes provide a toe-hold out of the well of abuse) obtained. I have an appreciation for the need for LIBERTY and clearly understand that anyone financially enslaved is indeed a slave, and a beggar.
I do not know (and no longer care) what caused my particular family of origin to be so rigidly and viciously insisting that their “family” needs a scapegoat, and I must be it, apparently because of birth order. While they have mocked religion as for intellectual infants, I find (having some exposure to religion) that this attitude is itself infantile. An appreciation of the role of religion in politics, and in history, gives at least another language through which to understand the world, including some serious threats to its continued existence.
Repeatedly disrupting a household (notice, I didn’t say, FAMILY) is to repeatedly disrupt a CULTURE. Before people get their bearings, it’s time for another shakedown. This IS the family law system. It externalizes judgment to paid professionals, a cult of “experts” who themselves are many times operating from their own personal bad experiences in marriage or family, OR who are just crooks looking for an easy living (compared to being a family court litigant, for sure) in the world of prophetic psychological “diagnoses.” With heads in theory, and pre-occupied with the “scientific” evidentiary basis of it, they are blind to the real suffering, including death!, that this rains down on their subject matter.
I believe that this detachment from the “other” (professional/client) is as dangerous an attitude as Nazi-ism, eugenics, and the plantation mindset that a war was fought over, in the U.S., less than 100 years after we became a nation.
I first became aware of this detached language/perspective when looking up the educational backgrounds of some of the small, but VERY well positioned “Center for Policy Research” (all women). It became obvious that before completing college, the mindsets and career curve were set in place. This small organization has had a huge impact on the United States, for decades now. As kids beg, are abused by noncustodial parents who became custodial through the courts, as families are killed over “custody disputes” and kids get kidnapped, or flee with protective mothers overseas, and now are hauled back and their Moms jailed for doing this, as the next generation is growing up traumatized, rootless, and watching the U.S. version of a public flogging of (sorry, but I have to say), their mothers — they learn fast not to bond with those mothers, lest the same treatment be given them.
While the “Access/Visitation” funding to each state is supposed to protect the children through “supervised visitation centers,” in effect it is doing the exact opposite. Besides draining money from taxpayers, and often the affected parent (when such a parent must pay to see a child), these are in effect centers for experimentation / data collection / future studies on parent/child relationships. They are also tools to abuse the wrong parent, and can become also side-streams to a profiteering racket run by judges, retired judges, attorneys, or mediators, etc.
I have been blogging on this now for approximately a year and a half of joblessness through domestic violence, with the social safety net more tangled (and ineffective) than the abusive marriage, family of origin, family court process, associated religious (Christian) groups covering it up in order to retain THEIR corporate cash flow (from families/fathers/services of Moms & even kids). I have also just about explored (to my content) what most major DV agencies and (at least local) nonprofits are doing in this field.
They have their professional/funding niches, and will not compromise it for the sake of some lowly truths, including that more and more parents know the “scams” and including that no — and I do mean NO (zero) (nada) (zilch)(“squat”) — NO evidence that these are indeed making a long-term POSITIVE difference in the welfare of abused women IF . . .. IF . . . . . IF . . .. a father contacts (or already has connections), or is contacted by — some of the fatherhood groups running the racket in the courts.
It should not be about “fatherhood” or “motherhood” or “childhood.”
“Family” is a word. It is a concept, only, and its meaning is so loose as to be meaningless.
Moreover, all Americans should be aware of alternate (in)famous “families.” For example, see Jeff Sharlett’s writings on “The Family” in Arlington, VA. Or the Rev. Sun Myung Moon interpretation of himself and his wife as the True Parents of the world. Heck, the Mafia is a “family” enterprise, right? The word “Godfather” has two key concepts in it. Watch out which god, and what is being “fathered.”
Personal testimony:
But I am here to tell you that the model of “Dad, Mom and 2.5 children” is not all it’s cracked up to be. I successfully filled that model, through college, and marriage, married an abuser, got loose, lost all support systems and profession and contact with my daughters. I went from destitute to solvent (while RO was on), and was driven back to destitute — but with more debt and fewer workings years left — exclusively — and I stand by this — because of the abject failure of family, family law, law enforcement, faith institutions, and “domestic violence nonprofits” to simply do the logical things — practice what they preached, and openly inform their clients who they are and what they are in fact doing.
On this blog, as spotty and erratic as it is, I have told what are the UNTOLD facts of the operating system of the courts, and directed those who care to look, to websites that are NOT only:
fatherhood
motherhood
childhood
family
feminist, feminist-backlash language (essentially think; NOW vs. NFI)
DV language
Religious language
the language of psychology
etc.
And as a Christian, I say, it can be an idol, and is. Even Jesus had his family issues later in life, and was — come to think of it — at some point, run in a “female-headed household.” So — was he a failure? (those who say he actually existed) Did he make any lasting contributions to society? Did he run to drugs, violence, gangs, or become a male prostitute?
It should be about UNalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness.
One cannot consider “Life” without considering economic systems; eating is intrinsic to life. Mortaging one’s time to a paycheck is one model of purchasing food. Selling goods and services is another. Owning businesses is another. Investing is another. So is stealing, selling one’s body – or someone else’s. Fewer and farther between in the US is growing one’s own food the norm. Centralization is the key word, and this includes of education.
When education doesn’t routinely include much more than how to learn to work a job (which is what the public schools generally speaking train children to do), not ethics, not how their own economic system works, and certainly not how government (actually “works”), it is training for obsolescence and a debt-ridden lifestyle, for a lifetime.
It’s rarely the “theory” so much as the “technology.” The pipelines.
The language to learn is the organizational language that our (U.S.) country has become. It is fascinating, and it will dispel some ignorance, myth, and false hopes. While it’s true, history is written in the terms of the conquerors, one can still check a variety of sources on nonprofits, foundations, institutes, and professional organizations. Language similarities are key.
Also, we have an under-utilized Library of Congress site, underutilized “TAGGS.hhs.gov” grants database for the Health and Human Services agency, although it, too, is incomplete and inaccurate — it shows trends. (I have not yet learned how to navigate the DOJ grants system), and it would really behoove Americans to keep track of (keep a binder on!) their own President’s STate of the Union addresses, and (my New Year’s Resolution) to start reading the Daily Digest of Congress.
They are elected representatives, and you (we) are “the people.” It has GOT to be a civic duty to make it clear, they represent us — and do not “own” us. While it’s acknowledged, many are “owned,” changing this has got to be a worthwhile fight.
In order to maintain any edge in this fight, more people have to stop sucking off the government teat(s) for their basic needs. More than Libertarians and Tea Partiers, who are going to dump off single mothers (and ethnic minorities) in the process.
I lived a moderate lifestyle all my working years, content within my profession centering around arts-based nonprofits working across a variety of venues as arts-based nonprofits do.
I worked, from college forward through marriage to filing of my domestic violence restraining order, I worked or was in FT school. I had roommates or lived alone, navigated work and housing changes successfully in different states, and added a second degree through a solid work-study experience, picking up more skills and developing personally.
Almost the first aspect of marriage was economic abuse (shutting me down as an economic entity whatsoever- item #1. Item #2 — pregnancy, #3 — physical assault & battery while present, plus psychological terrorism, #4 — dominance/threat model being established, either I was working to still beg (for basic needs for children and me), and/or begging to work (to obtain these through employment). I mistakenly allowed the first steps to economic control in part from shock, in part from no one around to stick up for me: family not close, religious groups did “religion,” and I had simply not run across this odd beast before:
- You must shut down your credit
because it had a balance. Next, was ”
- give me your ATM
.” Many liberal/progressives (I tended that way, sort of blending it in a balance, ideally, with faith — with a social justice flavor, etc.) just don’t “get” this. Their liberal progressivism doesn’t apply “within the family,” and when it comes with a personal cost, called risk. Someone else must bear that burden.
Possession of a wife quickly changes the attitude of certain men, and the community endorses it.
We are not talking “yearning for Zion” type enclaves — but the panoply of communities who literally see abuse, criminal behavior “out in the open” — but figure someone else will handle it.
It’s a shame I married someone afraid of independence, and it’s a shame I actually had enough curiosity about my family of origin to move within geographic range of them in the middle of my work life. There is no turning back those decisions, however, there is the hope to survive the worst ones, and re-take ground lost.
It is one thing to watch an entire set of associations not “turn the other cheek” but turn “deaf, blind, and dumb.” (Turn a blind eye….) towards wife-abuse and that’s what it is. It is violence against women because they are (married, in this case) women. Filed & labelled, it’s not their job.
But it is entirely another to get free from that one situation to face the same “deaf, dumb and blind” individuals proclaim loudly, “we see — now let us take over!” Any mother would turn outside that realm to the legal and nonprofit realm of help, while rebuilding her/their lives, especially income-based freedom.
Well, guess what. . .. those are no better, or more honest (trust me on that one, or gather more anecdotal evidence in your community!) The same process of “no thank you!” is essential. Rather than endlessly seeking help, women just have to, as we can, figure it out and pursue our own priorities. For me, the language of liberty-self-sufficiency, self-determination, and self-defense are FIRST. This is not “selfish” at all! It’s responsible citizenship, and responsible parenting; a good role model.
However, it does bring one into conflict with almost every entrenched system on the planet, as manifested in one’s local county court system, as run from (whoever runs) Washington, D.C.
Here, still, is a great example of sleuthing on a particular case from 2002. Scroll down below the blood and guts reporting on a disillusioned sniper (!!) / estranged Dad . . . . to this same individual’s “Devoted Dads” connection.
I will be “obnoxious” and paste paragraphs here to illustrate the scope of this problem. I have spoken at least once to the author, and understand she, too, has expended years exhorting others to follow these leads, and is likely exhausted and ready to regain her personal life.
Me too. This data-rich (proofreading-poor) blog is my part. I can’t live on air, and my “access” concerns right now include to healthy food, which is basically unavailable through Food Stamps (invasive, restrictive, massive, and suspicious of recipients. Certain items, such as healthy oils, or nutritional supplements to deal with the ongoing stresses of job loss through legal abuse, even after child loss, etc., are unavailable. I committed no crime to deserve this! Nor did other women in this situation through these same policies. Except the “crime” of not paying attention. Again, Give the Gift of “Thomas” — “Train” yourself and teach others this “Toolset.”
Analyzing the background of the 2002 DC Sniper, by Cindy Ross:
For a summary of how FR groups and their court allies obtain — and misuse — federal program grant funds through DHHS (Access/Visitation programs, DOJ (Arbitration/Mediation) programs, Responsible Fatherhood Programs, Co-Parenting Programs, and other mislabeled court-based federally sponsored “Family Services”, please see my summary, originally posted at NewsMakingNews.com in July, 2002, “Family Court Corruption”.
URL: http://newsmakingnews.com/ross7,8,02familycourtcorruption.htmNAFCJ has obtained program documents regarding the Responsible Fatherhood programs, which show that Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)/Welfare programs are being used to recruit abusive men — including incarcerated criminals — into fathers’ groups, where they are provided with “benefits” including free or low cost legal services to assist them with getting custody and getting child support obligations reduced or eliminated.
NAFCJ has been working with legislators across the country, requesting an investigation at the federal level into Fatherhood and related Child Support Enforcement Program, Access to Visitation Enforcement and Welfare Program fraud. One of the primary programs we have looked into, is the “Devoted Dads” program in Tacoma, Washington.
NAFCJ has determined that John Muhammad’s former attorney, John Mills, is an attorney for — and his legal assistant, Mario Young provided paralegal services to “indigent clients” at — the Devoted Dads program: (See Footnote following this article which excerpts the relevant PDF FILE (Adobe Acrobat required).
URL: http://auditor.co.pierce.wa.us/Elections/Archives/September2001/VP_pdf/fire6pos1.pdfDevoted Dads is funded by the Metropolitan Development Council. According to NAFCJ Washington State Director Martha Jacobson, Devoted Dads received at least 1.3 million dollars in federal grants between May 1998 and May 2000. On 8-5-02, in a tape recorded interview with Ms. Jacobson, Doug Swanberg of the Metropolitan Development Council confirmed that Mr. Mills was the “part time attorney” for Devoted Dads. This suggests that John Muhammad — a “homeless” dad who abducted his kids and then applied for Welfare in Tacoma — was not only a personal client of Mr. Mills, but was one of the “indigent clients” being provided services and “benefits” through the Devoted Dads program.
Ms. Jacobson has also obtained copies of correspondence between Doug Swanberg and David Arnaudo. Mr. Arnaudo is the administrator of the $10 million in federal access grants to the states, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who gave a presentation entitled “How to Obtain Access/Visitation Grants” at the Children’s Rights Council National Conference in 1999. URL: http://www.vix.com/crc/conf/
Children’s Rights Council is the same organization identified by NAFCJ as the “umbrella” organization of the Fathers’ Rights movement, which is cross affiliated with the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC). As described in my article “Family Court Corruption”, CRC/AFCC crafted “Parental Alienation Syndrome” (PAS) methodology — working with “experts” who advocate pedophilia and incest — as the means to assist child molesters and other abusive men get out of both criminal prosecution and child support obligations, while punishing mothers in supervised visitation and jail for reporting abuse.
I continue to be thankful for people who dedicated their investigation talents (probably for free) to dig up this information, and leave a track record.
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“Rethinking Domestic Violence” ~ “Understanding Women’s Responses to it” — the Dueling Dr. Duttons
Another half-baked (but also likely half-entertaining/informative) post from 08-21-2010.
These situations are so ridiculous, anything other than (a) mocking or (b) exposing the court dockets makes me feel like a collaborator. To be honest, part of my motivation is to simply not lose the time I put into this one, looking up data. Another part is to cover up the prior half-baked (Wacko in Wisconsin Part 2) post I just published.
One thing that’s NOT half-baked is the systems in place to justify trafficking in children, one way or another, at public expense, and then when this is brought to the public’s attention (or the public tries to bring it to the government’s attention) the same personnel (probably laughing and rejoicing among themselves) simply pick a “boilerplate” demonstration grant from one of the many already in place, change a few nouns and verbs, and apply for some more grants to study the problem they’ve created — one of which is, poverty.
This is NOT a half-baked system, but a fully-cooked business plan. More on that later…
Another which is, language is becoming meaningless, at some point. ….
HERE WE GO, AGAIN:
Which would you rather understand (or Rethink) —
- Domestic Violence? Or
- Women’s Responses to it? (1992-93, but quoted plenty, along with other publications) Or,
- Thinking Errors that Cause System Failure, * Or,
(*from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence recent conference in Anaheim, CA)?
- This Woman’s (my!) Response to the Thinking Error that Assumes the System actually IS Failing (I believe it’s doing exactly what it was designed to do. The “failure” depends on one’s POV (point of view). For example, if I sell you some land under the Brooklyn Bridge, I profited and you didn’t. Long ago some people sold the Island of Manhattan. That was not profitable for them. Another flavor of what I think is on the link above advertising for the NCADV conference where this occurred. Scroll down to LetsGetHonest comment on the whole deal.
The two Doctor Duttons are not, in fact dueling, and may or may not even be dealing with each other. But their Research — and by now we should know our 3 Rs: Research comes with Rhetoric, Right?
One thing both of them are doing, as well as researching, is publishing (this IS what Ph.D.s do, right?), and unlike women and men stuck in the court system, or violent relationships (or poverty), not perishing. Even though, if YOUR life depended on knowing which was more correct thinking, they would stil probably continue to research, publish, and not perish. IN fact, both are prominent, and what they write is worth reading, probably. Anyone who has got to Ph.D. had better publish.
One thing EVERY woman in a battering relationship, especially with children, and about to go for help, ro to the courts, or a child support order, or to a nonprofit agency on one side or the other of rhetoric, is the difference of viewpoint. Women have been so socialized to go for help (particularly in certain religions), they just MISS this. Others are also socialized to be punished if they stand up and just demand it, i.e., Claudine Dombrowski et al.
Take, for example, Claudine Dombrowski.
If experts were selling books that comprised almost SOLELY of the case dockets of women’s lives after they reported abuse and actually had a child, probably the abuse would just dang STOP.
Here’s the court docket in Shawnee Kansas — it is fourteen and a half years long. The next hearing is set for october. The last hearing (yesterda [@Aug. 2010]y), she STOOD UP and reported 67 contempts of a recent court order (allowing her to see her daughter). While that contempt is not severe emotional cruelty bordering on the torture (beatings) that started the case (batter, parental alienation, interference with a custody order, or in short a pattern of simply bad behavior), Claudine’s actually going to court with the paperwork must be smacked down SOMEHOW. I”m not quite sure what bad behavior Claudine showed this time, but it seems they grabbed her cell phone. Being that she’s also been noncustodial most of the time (i gather) I’m sure her finances are being grabbed to pay child support for this circus.
It is possible to be punished for a sort of gag order that prohibits one from exercising one from exercising First Amendment Rights, to protest in justice. The place this is SO o o o . . . . easy is when a psychologist, or mental health professional, particularly anyone relating to a CHILD, is involved:
08/20/2010 – MISC. Petitioner in person and by Donald Hoffman. Respondent in person and by Robert E. Duncan, II. G.A.L., Jill Dykes, present. Court Reporter: Digital Div. 13. Matter proceeds on review of Court’s order of January 28, 2010, establishing unsupervised parenting time for Respondent. Dr. Rodeheffer offers testimony – matter continued to a date to be agreed upon for additional testimony. Court finds that Dr. Rodeheffer’s report of May 18, 2010, has been published on the website of Respondent. Court suspends Respondent’s parenting time pending final hearing in this matter. Respondent’s counsel is to review Respondent’s cell phone to determine if there are images of report on Respondent’s cell phone – Respondent’s phone time with minor child to continue but to Petitioner’s home phone. Due to publication of report on the Internet, which deals with minor child, Court finds that there is a privacy interest of the minor child that is central to these proceedings and outweighs the public interest and orders that the files, records, and transcripts of the case be sealed until further order of the Court. J. Dykes to do order. DBD
Here’s one from April, 2009:
03/20/2009 – #86 Demand Motion filed and entered by CLAUDINE DOMBROWSKI, PRO SE, FOR JUDGE DAVID DEBENHAM TO RECUSE HIMSELF FOR VIOATIONS OF CANNONS ONE THROUGH THREE BIAS AND PREJUDICE TOWARDS RESPONDENT 03/20/2009 – Journal Entry filed. DBD 03/24/2009 – ORDER APPOINTING COUNSEL FILED – DBD. 04/06/2009 – MISC. Petitioner in person and by Donald Hoffman. Respondent in person and by Robert E. Duncan. G.A.L., Jill Dykes, for minor child who is not present. Court Reporter: Digital Div. 13. Respondent withdraws motion for recusal of Judge. Court considers evidence offered through affidavit and stipulations of the parties and after listening to arguments of counsel, finds that Judge Johnson on September 27, 2006, ordered “Respondent to withdraw any and all likenesses of the minor child over which she had control that may be appearing on the internet or other public places or public access and further that Respondent was ordered not to present child at public rallies, demonstrations, newscast or otherwise publicize the child’s name or likeness in furtherance of Respondent’s efforts in the instant case”. Court found 1) based on incidents detailed in the affidavit and the stipulations of the parties that Respondent had violated the Court’s order by intentionally placing photographs of the minor child on Respondent’s website and to links accessible through the Respondent’s website and to websites that the Respondent was either maintaining or contributing to; 2) that as of April 4, 2009, the photographs of the minor child were still accessible; 3) that as of April 6, 2009, the photographs were not accessible. Court finds Respondent to be in Indirect Contempt. In mitogation, Respondent offers that photos were part of a family tribute to her deceased grandmother. Court fines Respondent $1,500 and orders her to serve 30 days in jail. Court allows Respondent to purge herself of the contempt by removing all photos, likenesses and name of minor child from the internet or any other public place or public access on which she has control by April 15, 2009, at 3:00 p.m. Respondent is ordered to pay Petitioner’s attorney fees of $600 for prosecuting the motion to show cause, Respondent is ordered to obtain a psychological evaluation by a Psychiatrist. Respondent is prohibited from filing any motions on her own unless the motion is signed by her attorney or she obtains permission of the Court prior to filing. Parenting time as previously ordered – 2 hours supervised visitation per week through Odyssey Group. Respondent currently has a P.O. Box and does not wish to disclose her address. Court ordered, and Respondent agrees, that any filing mailed to her P.O. Box shall be deemed personal service. R. Duncan to do JE. DBD 04/24/2009 – REQUEST FOR TRANSCRIPT FILED BY: CLAUDINE DOMBROWSKI
The Publishing and Not Perishing Perspective is very different from the others.
The Profiting or nonprofiting from being expert on these matters is very different from the others.
The topic of adjusting Thinking Errors (or understanding them) is very definitely swampland — and where the solid ground is very probably depends on IRrational belief systems. Do you want to correct thinking errors based on information from The Holy Spirit? Then go to Dr. Abshier, ND (Naturopathic doctor, Christian Counselor, Political Philosopher).
1) Thinking Errors: Processing Problems, Irrational Beliefs, Irrational Thinking, and Self-Defeating Beliefs: There are many nuances and variations of the various cognitive distortions. They all include some degree of error in perception, proportion, meaning, processing and judgment: The thinking errors include: irrational beliefs about cause and effect, erroneous attributions of meaning, and wrong philosophical connections about the larger play of life in history and politics.
I happen to think his fields are interrelated — a nice combo: Naturapath (do it how the Creator designed it, or as close as possible; Christian Counselor (do it how the Creator designed it, hmm… is he fundie, or fatherhood promoter? conservative or liberal?? Was Eve responsible? Was she inferior? Did Jesus change that? What’s the domination quotia in this one?) and Political Philosopher. – – I just hope he can keep them all straight and segregated during counseling.
Are you a “design, quality, or manufacturing engineer or manager,” who needs to understand why people, unlike materials, often screw up, causing system failure? Then take this 2 – 4-day organization/management course:
Eogogics.com (“the science of knowledge sharing”)
Root Cause Analysis of Component Failure: Understanding Human and Engineering Factors for Improved Product Performance.
Design, test, and maintenance engineers; failure analysts; technical purchasing agents and supplier quality engineers; and engineering managers looking to integrate the lessons of failure analysis into a more comprehensive design operation, and procurement process
The standard presentation of this course assumes background in mechanical or materials (metallurgical) engineering. However, with some tailoring, the course can be understood by an audience with a bachelor’s in any engineering discipline
Are you a Computer Software person who doesn’t want to see another Y2K bug scare? Or a plain old person who wants to know why we had to go through that? Then go to:
Systems Failure is a role-playing game written by Bill Coffin and published by Palladium Books in 1999. The fictional premise for the game is that during the “millennium bug” scare . . .
A report investigating the causes of system failure in a software context, and highlighting and classifying those causes.
The Google search of this shows a title remarkably similar to the NCADV conference title, above:
Understanding System Failure And The Thinking Errors Which Cause · International Space Station’s Cooling System Failure Raises Long …
scitechbox.com/topic/system–failure – Cached
Which I find interesting, and revealing. For one, how original is the thought coming out of it? For another, systems that systematically fail to do what they SAY they want to do may have had another intent to start with. Either that, or two types of systems may have merged, and the antibodies in the one rejected the other, causing “System failure.”
Actually, this is exactly what happened in the family law system. You cannot add JUSTICE based on PROCESS based on Constitution and Bill of Rights with Mental Health Practitioners (for one, it’s illegal to experiment on human beings, and abhorrent. For another, IS psychology a science? I say, no. It’s a language set and interpretation of reality….). The Family Law system is a merger of (at least) two systems — legal & mental health. That’s simple fact — see AFCC. The other “invisible agent” in the matter (unless one has eyes to see it) is the child support system, i.e., the financial factor. That’s another fact — see “Access Visitation Funding” and a site ending *.gov.
So this system is indeed a hybrid — like a mule. Mules are great for work, strong and stubborn, but they have to be bred — they are sterile and can’t reproduce. They get a lot of work done, though… Same deal with this system. It CANNOT reproduce justice with a bunch of immune-to-accountability and READILY subject to conflict of interest (or bribes) professionals, and private clubs and conferences where they meet and prepare a strategy to throw on the whole system.
Perhaps by now readers have figured out MY system, and that I am playing games with Google in order to show similar phrases in different contexts (applications). That happens to be MY response to a decade in this system. It’s part of my STOP, LOOK and MOCK policy (see above post responding to the Thinking Errors post). I really do hope some will STOP, LOOK , and THINK. It beats rocking back and forth in a chair with grief, or shaking with PTSD, or sitting within range of someone who has now determined that such behavior is a thinking error which needs an Rx — which one of their business allies has been marketing. It makes me happy, and with luck, will offend someone and cause a quick BLINK of THINKING about what such systems have done to our Constitution and Courts.
Here’s one that’s a little closer to the topic — someone analyzing PTSD patient’s / trauma survivors’ “Thinking Errors.”
[PDF]
THINKING ERRORS THAT LEAD TO FAULTY CONCLUSIONS ABOUT ONE’S ROLE …
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
We have identified fifteen thinking errors that can lead trauma survivors to draw faulty … Obliviousness to totality of forces that cause traumatic events. … Failure to recognize that different decision-making “rules” apply when time is …. have conscious control over their autonomic nervous system. …
This ARTICLE IS 1997, .
Handout 10.4: Thinking Errors, Faulty Conclusions, and
Cognitive Therapy for Trauma-Related Guilt by Edward S. Kubany, Ph.D., ABPP
Published in National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Clinical Quarterly (1997, 8, 6-8). Reprinted in Trauma Response (1998, 4, 20-21). This article is in the public domain.
THE FIRST PAGE IS INFORMATIVE:
“There is growing recognition that trauma survivors’ explanations of their involvement in trauma may contribute to posttrauma symptomatology and interfere with the process of recovery (1,2,3). These explanations often revolve around cognitive aspects of guilt, which is conceptualized as an unpleasant feeling accompanied by a set of interrelated beliefs about one’s role in a negative event (2,4,5). My colleagues and I have identified four cognitive dimensions or components of guilt, which include (a) perceived responsibility for causing a negative outcome, (b) perceived lack of justification for actions taken, (c) perceived violation of values, and (d) a belief that one knew what was going to happen before the outcome was observed.
Considering this Cognitive Therapy, which correlates trauma such as combat veterans, rape victims, battered women, and incest survivors, — the latter three which FREQUENTLY are in this system — addressing the trauma and helping them correct thinking errors saying they were responsible for it — and, on the other hand, the Family Law (and sometimes Family) systems which, quite literally, blame the woman for her abuse (or minimize it), blame her for not maintaining a child’s attachment to the other parent (but fail to do this the other way round when a noncustodial Dad has won a custody switch in court) can cause some real Cognitive Dissonance (and more business for other therapists). Let me express this as a formula:
TRAUMA-BASED HEALING APPROACH + FAMILY COURT PICK A PARENT TO BLAME approach = INCOMPATIBLE = CYCLE OF DISTRESS = GOOD FOR $OME BU$INESSE$.
Add to this:
This therapist just said, trauma victims can NOT predict outcomes (so much for instinct, let alone pure prophecy). I don’t agree – I accurately predicted my daughters were going to be snatched, based on instinctive and ongoing assessment of the patterns around me. They were. I couldn’t predict exactly when or how, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to stop this. I accurately understood before it happened that the officers were not going to enforce, stop, or help, but there comes a point of overload of situations when one cannot process them all and handle them all.
A major business to the courts these days IS in exactly the business of prediction. It’s called Lethality Assessment, and it’s been around a very long time. I don’t share that point of view, because it’s my life, and kids (and women like me) whose lives are being risk-assessed. I’d rather go with PROTECTION (WHICH A RESTRAINING ORDER, FYI, ISN’T, REALLY).
Imagine applying the “risk prediction” process to something as important as, say, getting (someone) pregnant.
Mary Ann Dutton
Professor, Department of PsychiatryPSYCHIATRY, RESEARCH DIVISION
Mary Ann Dutton, PhD, Receives Grant
Mary Ann Dutton, PhD, Receives Three Year Grant from National Institutes of Mental Health
Mary Ann Dutton, Professor of Psychiatry and Associate Director of the Center for Trauma and the Community, received an R34 grant entitled A First-Line Community-Based Mindfulness Trauma Intervention from the National Institute of Mental Health. The study, which will run for three years, addresses an important new area in trauma.
The overall goal is to address the huge mental health care disparity for low-income, minority women exposed to intimate partner violence by obtaining new knowledge and skills in order to develop and test an accessible, tailored, and culturally-appropriate mindfulness-based intervention sustainable as a first-line intervention or delivery in non-mental health community settings. To narrow the remarkable mental health disparities gap, three interrelated studies using different methodologies will be conducted to develop and pilot test an adapted mindfulness-based trauma intervention. The proposal has three specific aims 1) to develop a mindfulness-based trauma intervention for PTSD and other trauma-related psychological (depression, somatic symptoms, quality of life). Intervention development will include writing intervention and training manuals, developing measures of intervention fidelity, and pre-piloting the intervention for feasibility and accountability; 2) to pilot test the interventions with low-income, predominately African-American women exposed to intimate partner violence and to examine potential mediators (mindfulness, coping self-efficacy, social support) of improved outcomes, and 3) to pilot test measures of the cost of administering the intervention. This pilot study will provide preliminary data for a rigorous large scale clinical trial to examine both self-report and biological outcomes of the mindfulness-based trauma intervention.
/
OR, you could go with another “Dr. Dutton” — here:
http://www.drdondutton.com/books.htm
Rethinking Domestic Violence
“Dutton’s analysis of domestic violence research and discourse is comprehensive, refreshing, and enlightened. He has gathered the latest work from multiple disciplines to create a volume that will surely be a cornerstone of a radical, distinctly feminist rethinking of domestic violence practice.” More…
Printed in Canada
Cover design: David Drummond
GIVE ME A BREAK. If he was an imminent target of DV (or his kids were), there’d be less publishing and more protecting.
Both Duttons have valuable things to say — and when I feel truly safe, I’ll be sure to read them. Maybe.
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Wacko in Wisconsin — and no, I’m NOT talking about the Parents/Litigants (published 9/15/2010, updated 7/21/2017)
Nowadays (posts published = about 715 as of summer 2017), this is how I identify posts:
Types of updates: When you see quotes within solid borders (boxed), quotes with different background colors, the borders on the post itself, or comments with dates signed: “…//LGH 2017 (LGH= “Let’s Get Honest,” i.e., me). Also the added section in light-green showing several images for some of the links (I didn’t do screenprints, let alone annotated screenprints in 2010. In general, I’m trying to better distinguish actual quotes from my commentary on them, through formatting. Wordpress doesn’t naturally enable this, so each time you see it, I’m plowing through html “gibberish” for the specific codes, and tweaking them by “div” or “blockquote” or “span” or “Table.” This takes considerable time… For image display, the “WYSIWYG” (What You See is What You Get” function is imperfect, so there’s a lot of back and forth (edit, preview, adjust, preview again, etc.) on the layout.
There may be a more efficient way to do all this, but until then, and still being basically a self-taught amateur for blogging technology, and more to the point, still just one person (focused more on content than format), that’s how it works.)… I spent some time on this post also checking for and, where possible, replacing broken links. ….. some quotation / commentary notations towards the bottom are “best guess” where I no longer had valid links.
Why bother updating older posts? — Well, the other part of this one just got five more comments, so that’s why. The other reason is the types of people that are visiting the post, based on (html-based visitor ID software) some of the organization names. In 2016 and 2017 I’ve been hard-hitting at higher levels of organized networks (nonprofit and governmental as coordinated) on on following the money, and showing how to, also giving people again, permission to question any or all of the “experts” in any category, but with the platform and basis for doing so being objective, and on “operations” level. So, although they aren’t commenting much, visitors show up from various universities (incl. Harvard), or levels of government (esp. from California, where I live and on which blogs tend to focus), and overseas (London School of Economics at least a few times, Legislative Offices, President’s Offices at UC, and so forth). Sometimes these visitors seem to match what was being posted, sometimes, not.
And other times, I have to admit, it’s just to avoid humiliation in retrospect at the formatting/condition of the earlier posting.
There was a “Part 2” on this theme published 10/1/2010:
Picking up the narrative at Oct. 1, 2010…
I dare you to make some sense of this one: Actually, by now, there are about 4 cases below: Walkers (they squeaked in, in my intro), Archibalds, Stearns (thrown in for illustration), Katz, and that one’s a doozie. ALL of them are…What’s UP in Wisconsin?
Among the “parents” involved are <>the “Bodway” family who managed to get a daughter away from a mother after divorce, being nonrelatives; <>a mother who is caught, and on probation and medication for stealing her own daughters (and drugs and a gun involved– the drugs were antidepressants for her, and the gun, not fired, was for her safety, she said), and I’m going to presume that PROBABLY <>that prominent WI D.A. who was prosecuting a DV case and trying to make it (sexting was involved) with a woman half his age, while prosecuting her boyfriend for attempting to strangle her while still married (but divorcing) probably was a parent too.
SO . .
If you still think life as normal exists somewhere within our courts, then this blogger (who I suspect is the woman in question) will sound like a nutcase. And it’s easy to discredit someone whose allegations sound like a nutcase –unless one has spent some time looking up the court dockets, which I did here.
THE WALKER CASE IS A WALKING CASE OF CONFLICTS OF INTEREST– PARTIAL:, here.
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Who Submitted Statements re H.R. 2979 Fatherhood Funding?
(Continuing on the Julia Carson Responsible Fatherhood Funding, from testimony at the HOUSE.GOV site. (searching “Julia Carson”)
WHO ELSE GOT THEIR COMMENTS IN, THEN?
The FOLLOWING individuals, some on behalf of their organizations, made “statements of record” between the time of the June 17, 2010 hearing and the cutoff for submitting statements on-line, which I believe was July 1, 2010.
- American Humane Association
- Illinois Council on Responsible Fatherhood
- PAIRS Foundation
- American Mothers Political Party
- AngelFury.org
- Anita Barnes
- Dr. Alan Hawkins, Brigham Young University
- California Healthy Marriages Coalition 1 (“CHMC” for this post)
- California Healthy Marriages Coalition 2
- Center for Family Policy & Practice (Search — I have posted before).
- Center for Urban Families
- Child Find of America Inc.
- Community Endeavors Foundation
- COPES, Inc.
- Families in Crisis, Inc.
- Fatherhood and Marriage Leadership Institute
- Gail Lakritz
- Goodwill – Easter Seals Minnesota
- Greg Eckenrode
- Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute
- Linder Battershall
- Male Empowerment Network Inc.
- Mariz Zwiefka
- Mothers of Lost Children – Indianapolis
- National Fatherhood Initiative
- National African American Drug Policy Coalition I
- National Alliance for Family Court Justice
- National Center for Fathering
- Nurturing Father’s Program
- Nurturing Father’s Program, Study 1
- Ohio Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families
- Dr. Philip Cowan, Supporting Father Involvement Project
- Randi James
- Relationship Research Foundation, Inc.
- Renovando Familias
- Rights for Mothers Group
- Ruth Whipple
- Sacramento Healthy Marriages Project
- Technical College System of Georgia-Fatherhood Program
- Teen-Aid, Inc.
- Texas Coalition for Healthy Families
- Dr. Jennifer Baker, The School of Professional Psychology at Forest Institute
- VA EQUAL Parents
- VOW Family Champions
- Warren County Center for the Family
- YouandMe.We
- ICF International
- Northwest Family Services
- The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
- Patty Howell, California Healthy Marriages Coalition
It should be immediately obvious that some of them have a vested interest in continuing their own programs. We all have a “vested interest” in knowing more than anecdotal evidence whether its purpose (reducing welfare, helping kids) was accomplished
CHMC is one of the largest, I already blogged them.
https://familycourtmatters.wordpress.com/?s=California+Healthy+Marriages+Coalition
Any of these can be blogged, and their statements read (My electronics won’t, for some reason…
REP. DANNY K. DAVIS’ STATEMENT:
Here’s the statement from the Committee on Ways and Means’ Blog, from Danny K. Davis, sponsoring it (I gather):
Rep. Danny Davis Discusses Responsible Fatherhood Programs
June 17, 2010 12:47 PM |-by Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL)
There is broad agreement that fathers matter in the upbringing of children. Studies show that children raised in the absence of a father are more likely to live in poverty. Children whose fathers interact with them on a regular basis in such daily activities as helping with homework, enjoying recreational opportunities and sharing meals have higher self-esteem and are better learners.
{{cites, please? Who funded the studies {{see earlier posts…}}? Are mothers simply incompetent? This is now the common rhetoric breathed in these economically cloistered circles.}}
Children raised in the absence of a father are more likely to engage in risky behaviors such as early sexual activity, as well as drug and alcohol abuse.Statistics demonstrate that boys raised in fatherless homes are more likely to become violent. Fathers’ positive involvement in their children’s lives and men’s positive involvement in their communities are irreplaceable contributions to the strength of our nation.No one argues that there is any one model of family structure
but the elimination of government barriers to healthy relationships and healthy marriages,
the promotion of cooperative parenting skills and the fostering of economic stability and the provision of incentives to non-custodial parents to fulfill financial and emotional support responsibilities are clearly in the interests of millions of children.
Public Debt
and the Economy
STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images
The National Debt Clock at 1133 Avenue of the Americas and 44th Street, March 26, 2006, in Manhattan.
The public debt is the same as the national debt and the deficit. All of these terms calculate the difference between the amount of money the government takes in each year in taxes and investments and the amount the government spends. The United States public debt is currently well over $9 trillion. (You can look up the exact public debt at the U.S. Bureau of Public Debt.) In 2006, the interest alone on the national debt cost U.S. taxpayers $405 billion.
Who Owns the National Debt?
The top foreign purchasers of U.S. debt are:
- Japan
- China
- UK
- Oil exporting countries
(now let’s review: WHOSE kids are these Responsible Fatherhood is rescuing? “Ours”? I guess the Congressmen must be independently wealthy, unlike the rest of “U.S.” because at this rate, their asse(t)s appear to be in hock to other nations. (See my blog on Independence, Fatherhood and Debt — they ARE related topics…))
COPYEDITING and PROOFREADING NOTES, plus commentary:
JUST ANOTHER HOMECOMING KING?
DIGRESSION to cover the 2004 CORONATION of The Parent to the World, Rev. Sun Myung Moon, as reported by Chicago Tribune Op Ed Columnist, Eric Zorn.
I already like this guy Zorn; he admits up front his blog is “observations reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order.” (my kinda writing. You have to love what you do . . . . )
The problem is when the tirades, or rhetoric, IS taken seriously by those dispensing it. This one dates from Nov. 2008 and context is, whether Mr. Davis was going to replace Senator Obama:
The flippant response when confronted on this regal behavior is disturbing. It’s disturbingly similar to the marriage rhetoric, and we might want to explore whether the Messianic thinking has gone a little too far in in Federal Circles. . . . . . the U.S. is NOT a monarchy; the Constitution doesn’t allow our leaders to receive titles of nobility or dispense them either. (See “Obama Obeisance link,” if it’s still active, to the right.
This is so “beyond” the faith-based cooperation that’s disturbing a lot of us — take a look at this:
“Can Danny Davis’ Star rise with a Moon in the Way?”
In promoting himself as a candidate to succeed Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Chicago) seems to be hoping the public has forgotten his participation in a very creepy 2004 “coronation” ceremony in Washington for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife.
As I wrote at the time, Davis was an active assistant (see this photo via Rich Miller) in pageantry designed to burnish and inflate the reputation of a man who, divine or not, wants to abolish Western-style democracy, compares gay people to dung-eating dogs, and in exhorting Jews to convert and follow him, told them: “You have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity, Hitler killed 6 million Jews.”
From the archives, here’s my column on that event and the Tribune editorial that followed:
Lawmaker’s take on Moon fete is crowning oddity
June 20, 2004
The most disturbing thing is not that U.S. Rep. Danny Davis (D.-Ill.) attended an elaborate coronation ceremony in Washington for the controversial Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his wife.
And it’s not that Davis took an active role in the ceremony, carrying to the dais on a velvet pillow one of the jeweled crowns that were placed upon the heads of the robed Moons.
[Photo from a blog, not the news article:
By David Neiwert Saturday Nov 29, 2008 5:00pm ]
{{Back to the Washington Post Article:}}
More than half a dozen other congressmen and senators also were in attendance, according to several reports, including one in the Washington Times, a newspaper Moon owns.
The event took place March 23 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building under the banner of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a Moon-led organization.
“People crown kings and queens at homecoming parades all the time,” Davis said when I called him Friday to ask for his thoughts now that the story, which had been incubating for months in Web logs, has gathered momentum. “We do a lot of things in our society that are simply symbolic.”
Davis said it was his understanding that the crowns represented the Moons’ achievements as “true parents, both to their own children and I guess to lots of children and other people. I think they were being feted for their promotion of parenthood, of family values and family traditions.”
That’s quite a thought. In its heyday, Moon’s cultlike Unification Church was famous for separating adherents from their families and promoting mass arranged marriages that violated American family traditions.
Be afraid. Be VERY afraid. Where are Lily Tomlin, Chris Rock, Roseanne, Robin Williams, George Carlin, ANY comedians, when you need them? Rep. Davis doesn’t seem to “get” the message that this message is marching to an entirely different beat than our Constitution.
And the “Crown of Peace” honor that Moon in effect bestowed upon himself that day in the federal office building was no mere Good Daddy prize.
As he made clear toward the end of his speech to the gathering, Moon believes himself to be “God’s ambassador, sent to Earth with his full authority.“
He said, “I am sent to accomplish his command to save the world’s 6 billion people, restoring them to heaven with the original goodness in which they were created.”
Moon went on to tell the gathering in simultaneously translated Korean that he’s been in communication with the spirits of Hitler, Stalin, Marx, Lenin and “the founders of five great religions,” and that these men and other notables have unanimously “declared to all heaven and Earth that Rev. Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s savior, messiah, returning lord and true parent.”
Rep. Davis said: “I think he was simply saying that he’s a promoter of a message and that he thinks his message of peace and world peace make sense, not that he’s a messiah in the traditional sense.”
It’s disturbing that Davis, who has spoken and appeared at numerous other Moon-sponsored gatherings in his seven years in Washington, would have missed the plain assertion in Moon’s speech, an assertion Moon has made frequently and that Davis says conflicts with his own Christian beliefs. But it’s not the most disturbing thing.
No, the most disturbing thing is that, to this day, Davis expresses no regret about assisting in the pageantry designed to burnish and inflate the reputation of a man who, divine or not, wants to abolish Western-style democracy, compares gay people to dung-eating dogs, and in exhorting Jews to convert and follow him, told them: “You have to repent. Jesus was the King of Israel. Through the principle of indemnity, Hitler killed 6 million Jews.”
WOW. Some of the fast backpedaling over this event (which I missed. I was dealing locally with issues regarding child support, child visitation, and in general increasing job losses from a very poorly written (and unenforced) custody order at the time . . . . ) is phenomenal. Appa-rently even some of Washington’s finest felt they had to explain their endorsement by attendance in this event . . . .
The Rev. Moon Honored at Hill Reception
Lawmakers Say They Were MisledBy Charles Babington and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, June 23, 2004; Page A01More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year honoring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in which Moon declared himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be “reborn as new persons.”
. . .
The event’s organizers flew in nearly 100 honorees from all 50 states to receive state and national peace awards. The only “international crown of peace awards” went to Moon and his wife.Some Republicans who attended the event, including Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett (Md.), said they did so mainly to salute the Washington Times, a conservative-leaning newspaper owned by Moon’s organization. “I had no idea what would happen” regarding Moon’s coronation and speech, Bartlett said yesterday.
But a key organizer — Archbishop George A. Stallings Jr., pastor of the Imani Temple, an independent African American Catholic congregation in Northeast Washington — said Moon’s prominent role should have surprised no one. He said a March 8 invitation faxed to all lawmakers stated that the “primary program sponsor” would be the “Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace (IIFWP), founded by Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon, who will also be recognized that evening for their lifelong work to promote interfaith cooperation and reconciliation.” The invitation was signed by Davis and the Rev. Michael Jenkins, as co-chairmen of the IIFWP (USA).
The event’s co-sponsors were the Washington Times Foundation, the United Press International Foundation, the American Family Coalition, the American Clergy Leadership Conference and the Women’s Federation for World Peace, according to the invitation. Stallings, a former Roman Catholic priest who was married in Moon’s church, said Moon’s association with those organizations is well known.
“You’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind to not know that any event that is sponsored by the Washington Times . . . could involve the influence, or the potential presence, of the Reverend Moon,” he said.
Use of the Dirksen building requires a senator’s approval. Dayton said he gave no such permission, and Stallings said the question of who did so is “shrouded in mystery.”
Moon has claimed to have spoken in “the spirit world” with all deceased U.S. presidents, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and others. At the March 23 event, he said: “The founders of five great religions and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin . . . and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.”
Back to MY Digression:
We cannot stop the multiple foundations funding the government, which I have a come to realize probably own most of the figureheads in Washington more than we want to accept. I certainly think President Obama is plenty intelligent, and I notice, being lean, he’s probably at least as healthy as any preceding president, particularly former President Clinton. However, it’s also known that prior to election, the Obamas were the 10th richest congressmen around. These Congresspeople’s wealth includes wealth and/or assets from spouses as well. Given that, being raised by a single parent or not, there are certain differences from “the rest of us” which skin color doesn’t compensate for. The Healthy marriage Fatherhood Movement was supported by Bush AND Clinton AND even moreso, Obama. What this movement really represents, as far as I can tell, is a centralized government under the pretense of a more Healthy Nation.
Everyone (but “everyone”) knows of the Health Care debate. Too few of those not involved in it know about the extent and far-reaching consequences of the Healthy MARRIAGE debate. It doesn’t make headlines (family wipeouts DO, but they are not generally traced to this doctrine).
Nor do newspapers, also owned by SOMEONE, necessarily point the finger at the hands that feed them, and say, this waste is KILLING us financially, as well as physically.
While my blogs don’t read so smooth, or look so neat, I still will continue keeping the debate going, among fellow-bloggers and on-line, while I can spare the time to do so. The trail tells us a whole lot we didn’t learn in school, often, and what was “going down” while some of us were minding our own business, meaning, “families” and “jobs.”
I could’ve picked on another representative. However, Rep. Davis DID lead out on this bill. It’s not about individuals, but the whole language of this movement DOES smack of government playing parent to the nation, paternalistic talk, and in circles far removed from the situation.
WHEN WE FILE IN COURT, WE ARE NOT TEMPTED TO THINK OF COLUMBIA, PRINCETON, HARVARD, CORNELL, UNIV. OF PA, UNIV. OF MICHIGAN, AND THINK TANKS, PLUS JOSHUA DuBOIS ADVISING PRES. OBAMA (see top pdf, the Kirk Harris download shows a US map of all the fatherhood programs, and the title of the map refers to a webinar run by J. DuBois, i.e., faith-based initiative.
BUT DECISIONS MADE THERE AFFECT WHERE KIDS WHO MAY HAVE BEEN PRIMARILY RAISED BY A MOM FINISH GROWING UP. ALL TOO OFTEN, THEY ARE TRANSFERRED TO DAD, AND THEN HER WAGES GARNISHED, IF SOME REMAIN. T HIS IS COUNTERPRODUCTIVE BECAUSE IT’S ‘SOCIAL-OUTCOME-BASED” THINKING, WHICH HAS NO PLACE IN THE COURTS. And although “low-income” may have been the initial target (supposedly), and particularly low-income Black, it certainly hasn’t remained there.
Unlike many programs that are being cut back substantially, THESE are not, it seems. They’ve been going on undercover (not in the press) for over a decade, so that when a person hits the court (she) takes a hit in the gut, the emotional/financial, etc. gut. WHY? Because of the involvement through the child support agencies.
The extra “Pow!” of the punch comes from the involvement of socialistic social service programs’ intent to put Dads back in the hoome. Well, how can this be done? By tipping the balance, working behind the scenes, pushing mediation (I’ll review in another post soon) and talking in comes of OUTCOMES, not PROCESS. Information is withheld that this is going on.
RE: OTHER PEOPLE WHO SPOKE:
I think I may set up some pages for the individual players. Although you can download it here, The first page will be Kirk Harris MPA, JD, a 14 -pager showing how the fatherhood programs nation wide grew out of the “maternal and child” care programs (no they didn’t actually). I think that innocent and naive viewers (as well as any Dad visitors) whould know what is being said about this fantastic noun, “fatherhood,” and how the thing is to really help the Dads.
Harris, MPA, JD – Testimony for Ways and Means, Subcommittee on …
Jun 17, 2010 … The Julia Carson Responsible. Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act (HR2979) championed by Congressman Danny Davis …
waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/…/2010Jun17_Harris_Testimony.pdfCommittee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Human Resources …
waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy/humres/106cong/hr-11wit.htm
(1999 testimony — the link leads to individual’s statements . . . . )
ASIDE- COMMENTARY:
The larger question, really is, do we want to become socialist (or have we already); it is a question of finances, and use of them. These finances, many, come from private citizens who submit tax returns. Others are heavily pumped in with help by major foundations.
As an individual leaving a certain bad relationship, I knew that the MOST important thing to me was to regain the infrastructure of my own life and being to make choices how to run it. There were mistakes, but the most overt ones had been made over my objections during the marriage. How to correct this was problematic, but not WHAT to correct.
By contrast, some outsiders (primarily family) saw the breakup of the marriage as a failure. I saw it as a positive step, an improvement, and not a failure. The failure probably was marrying this guy to start with, but I was a different person then, not so confident.
Generally back seat drivers are not GOOD drivers. To just exist, and not have much control over the primary decisions of one’s life, or what one does with it, isn’t good. No, where freedom to choosee remains, it should be exercised and safeguarded. The OTHER reason it’s important is that one can adjust course faster, when a choice doesn’t work so well, and the learning curve accelerates.
When the government, or any major, large institution gets into doing things behind closed doors, then those ‘done to” miss that learning curve, and either have an illusion of choice in action (hence, don’t know their landscape well), or know they don’t and are less motivated to make something MEANINGFUL out of time on earth, as opposed to merely eating, breathing, surviving. And many are at that level already.
The concern about the role that private wealth plays in running government isn’t new, but people who don’t look, just aren’t aware.
These programs have been going on for so LONG: here’s from 2000, 106th Congress: The Child Support act was approved “BY VOICE VOTE.”
ACTION
FROM THE COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Contact: (202) 225-3625
July 20, 2000
No. FC 31-A
Archer Announces Committee Action on H.R. 4868, the “Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2000,” H.R. 4678, the “Child Support Distribution Act of 2000,” and H.R. 4865, the “Social Security Benefits Tax Relief Act”
Congressman Bill Archer (R-TX), Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, today announced that on Wednesday, July 19, 2000, the Committee ordered favorably reported, as amended, H.R. 4868, the “Miscellaneous Trade and Technical Corrections Act of 2000,” by voice vote. The Committee also ordered favorably reported the following two bills, as amended: H.R. 4678, the “Child Support Distribution Act of 2000,” by voice vote
Title V – Fatherhood Programs
For the fatherhood grant program for fiscal years 2001 through 2007, $140 million would be appropriated. The charitable choice provision of the welfare reform law of 1996 (P.L. 104-193) would apply to these fatherhood grants; this provision would allow States to contract with charitable, religious, or private organizations to deliver services. In addition, a national clearinghouse of information about fatherhood programs and a multi-city fatherhood demonstration project would be established.
Non-profit fatherhood organizations eligible to apply for one of the two $5 million multi-city fatherhood project grants would be required to have several years of experience in designing and conducting fatherhood programs; experience in conducting fatherhood projects in more than one major city, and experience in coordinating programs with local government agencies and private, nonprofit agencies. One of the fatherhood organizations would be required to have extensive experience in using married couples to deliver their program in the inner-city. Several provisions designed which would deal with domestic violence are included in the bill. Funds would not be able to be used for court proceeding on matters of child visitation or child custody or for legislative advocacy.
TITLE VI: Miscellaneous
The time that funds can be spent on the evaluation of the Abstinence Education Program would be extended through 2005.
Social Services or Simply Serving Up Socialism?
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{{post began in late May…}}
I’m almost off the deep end after having made the rounds of all the potential “services” available to help with — well, what exactly WERE they supposed to help with?
I looked at yet another set of conferences (and the backgrounds of the speakers).
Consider:
FAMILY COURT SERVICES (serving up WHAT to WHOM?)….
HUMAN SERVICES
and for that matter,
SUNDAY, or SATURDAY, MORNING SERVICES.
Adding to the dissociation, neither the word “Sunday” nor “Saturday” (above) derive from the Judaeo-Christian writings, which forbade worship of the heavens (or creation) and simply numbered the days, rather than naming them, except for specified feast days. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, SABBATH.
Changing that 7th day to “Sunday” was a power play not even shrouded in history, but clearly documented — and part of our ADHD landscape today. The days of the week are named after what this tradition called “Pagan” gods, and not even consistently so. Some are named after planets, some are gods (Norse, if I have it right).
Then we name the months also — some of them after divinities (January, March) some after emperors (August) and some after numbers (like September — which means Seven — but in OUR mixed up calendar, it’s actually the 9th month). No wonder the year starts with the god with two faces, Janus.
======
BUT — back to the idea of “SERVICE”
Just who is being served? And what?
What’s on the plate, and who’s paying the piper?
The more I actually THINK about this, examine, and reflect (things low-income single mothers, let alone litigants are NOT supposed to do; they are supposed to leave the evaluation up to those hired to do so, i.e., the “evaluators” and other “experts,” few of who — as I keep saying — have experienced what we are going through (including at the hands of the courts), and not enough of them having actually even experienced giving birth and functionin as a MOTHER, and then suddenly having motherhood ripped out from underneath them…. That is not typically the job route to becoming a judge…. But, if you are a 2nd (or in the case of Ms. Nadia Lockyer, I heard, THIRD) wife, then it’s probably a different scenario. She moved up real quickly through the ranks, having a child the same year she married, and within 4 years (who’s raising HER child?) becoming head of the Alameda County Family Justice Center — something she surely knows a lot about, having actually raised a family (??? ??? ????)
There is a slippery road of Slipshod language sliding downhill FAST to what I basically call SLAVERY.
14 steps to slavery listed
in the back of the NDCC book. “NDCC” stands for “None Dare Call It Conspiracy.”
One dare not call a conspiracy a conspiracy because of the namecalling, slander, shunning campaign likely to follow.
Why can’t one use the word “conspiracy” if one exists, or is thought to exist? We have a Department of Homeland Security whose very job is to STOP “conspiracies” to overthrow it.
Suppose people notice a conspiracy to overthrow civil rights, or a particular group of people, which shows indicators of heading towards a partial genocide by (name your profile) — we are NOT supposed to talk about it? Will that DHS come after us if we do?
I’m going to talk about it, because I know what I have personally experienced, I know my experience is NOT unique, and I’ve been around enough to know which topics are censored (never brought up) by which types of conferences, even when the conference APPEARS to have (on the face of it) diversity of viewpoints represented.
The diversity is superficial, as in the case of the VAWA groups collaborating with the Fatherhood Groups (1994 VAWA and 1994 NFI are clear enough indicators) and NONE Of them are really talking about the Fatherhood movement actually being a religion [these adherents are so upset with feminists because feminism challenges the male-dominated Judaeo-Christian religion], about misappropriations of federal grants, nor are they talking about government sanctioned child-trafficking, which is just about what’s taking place these days.
[[I’ll paste top of that link at the bottom of this post…]]
Here are 14 indicators, per Gary Allen, (link below) and he wrote this in 1970. He claimed that several were already in effect at the time:
I SHUDDER as I realize how many of the above are taking place through the family law system, and have become accepted, and commonplace, by society {A few bracketed above in italics are mine, not Mr. Allen’s}. I was deeply affected by the one regarding education when private education is possible. It’s easier to make orders like this to divorcing or separated parents (given the threat of removing custody to the other parent if compliance is not quick) than a united pair. I most definitely had fewer rights separated than married, and remember, my marriage standard was the religious version of domestic violence.
Here’s where it goes when the Religious Police hold sway, or could go. THis time, a man was caught, but typically it leans hard on women:
http://www.google.com/search?q=90+lashes+kissing+in+public+&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
Is this where we want to head?
We DO realize, right? that psychology & psychiatry is basically a religion substitute, and shares many of the same qualities, stating norms and deviance from them as mental illness sometimes requiring medication …..
And Wade Horn and other religious folk are fundamental architects of many HHS programs.
We’d better face these issues nationally!
We’re on it, and far down this road. I can’t take on the nonprofits and the foundations behind them without reliable housing, food, and transportation, let alone identifiable FUTURE. At this point, I can’t even write a well-reviewed post.
But one thing I CAN do is walk into a room, or a venue, and pick up on the linguistic ambience. This comes perhaps from my former profession (teaching, musicianship) in combination with the years of living with a spouse who was overt about controlling everything.
You want to “explicate” domestic violence? I have it in a simple motto, and no conferences need be run on the finer points of it: It’s slavery.
It’s this attitude:
Read the “14 steps to slavery” in the back of this book. We’re in it. And while reading, ignore any onlookers who start the namecalling — you’re a Tea Party member, you’re a fundie, you’re paranoid.
NO, I’m awake. Grrrrowllll
[PDF]
NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY
at their disposal to fire the barrages at None Dare Call It Conspiracy. …… This book: None Dare Call It Conspiracy. In writing this book we have tried …
The Great Income Tax Hoax
Welcome to the Net-based copy of 16 chapters of Irwin Schiff’s masterpiece on the US “Income Tax”! Laws are the whitewash that governments use to disguise the ugly fact that they steal money from productive people, then use it to control how they live their lives.
Being merely one-sided contracts, [tax, presumably] laws have no moral validity whatsoever; but eight generations of government schooling have conned Americans into supposing that they are magic, to be held in respect and awe.
Accordingly, if there is a tax law, most people tend to obey it. In this masterpiece, perhaps the most important book he ever wrote, Irwin Schiff shows that there is no such thing; how even that veneer of respectability falls off the “income tax” when its origins are systematically probed
==============
SANDIEGOCHILDTRAFFICKING:
(The sites spelling and formatting is a LITTLE better than mine…)
Here are some of the links at the top of the page. The average person does not have the time or stomach to process all of this:
Child Trafficking
Son says Hennepin County ignored his claims of hidden camera in home
He says he reported it in 2007; father indicted in May on child-porn charges
dhanners@pioneerpress.com
Updated: 06/12/2010 09:40:16 PM CDT
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Written by Let's Get Honest
June 11, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Posted in After HE Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Designer Families, Split Personality Court Orders, Where's Mom?
Tagged with 14 Steps to Slavery, CPS, custody, Declaration of Independence/Bill of Rights, Due process, family law, fatherhood, foster father child porn arrest, Hennepin County MN, hidden camera in foster care family bathroom, None Dare Call It Conspiracy, obfuscation, Our ADHD calendar, Pierre Larsen case, runaways, San Diego Child Trafficking, social commentary, Who's serving Whom WHAT?, women's rights