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

This page is

“Nine-Paragraph Summary of my Personal, Experiential “Understanding Government” Process (3-16-2017)(See related posts)”, from:

After reading this page, please return to the originating post, for a summary paragraph, and (with lime-green background) continuing the discussion in its larger context. A related post was also published 3-12-2017 asking the question “Should the US Join the Commonwealth of Nations” but focusing more specifically in indicators that — functionally — in the PRIVATE part of public/private partnership efforts affecting public policies (and the budget/expenditures), it already has.  The “Explaining my inspiration for asking” post (which I hope to publish today — see title date) — reminds readers of the history of that Commonwealth vis a vis the British Empire, the post World War II decades in the US (with civil and women’s rights-related movements and acts) and how formerly more OVERT sexist and racist public institutions and operations, driven to more subtle perpetuation of those principles IN GOVERNMENT, took significant comfort during the same timeframe in moving into less “in your face” policies, exercised in federal agency policies towards marriage, families, and child-rearing.

My page here incorporates some of those strands from my experience in having to call upon government (outside interference in the legal and law enforcement fields) intervention in my own household and marriage — because my husband was a batterer, with ALL that entails in the abusive control — in addition to the assaults and batteries endured and survived during that time.

There are definite parallels with how slaves were controlled, if not in extent and quality, still in the same manners – YOU can get out (with nothing), but NOT WITH YOUR KIDS.

The hypocrisy involved in current Women’s movement and Violence Prevention Fields in the 21st century mirrors that which (they) started in the late 20th.  It is always easier to find a worse-case-scenario to promote a cause around — as “Futures without Violence” has done from San Francisco Bay Area, with their ongoing millions of dollars contributions, real estate operations at the SF Praesidio (related entities), coordinated over time in conferencing with the National Council of Family and Juvenile Court Judges (NCJFCJ”) in a “Greenbook” Initiative and Conference to make sure the freedom of American (USA-inhabiting) mothers — in particular — are put in their subdominant place after having “Just said no!” to in-home domestic violence and attempting to raise the next generation of children AWAY from such perpetrators — not away from ALL men, just those who have been seen assaulting them in front of the kids, or assaulting the kids and in general, setting a poor role model.

Paragraph numbering starts below this line, which is the moved material.  What’s above here introduces the page in its context.  The numbering doesn’t mean a list of points; it’s simply an ongoing narrative. The numbers are just to measure the length of the passage.

(1)

As a writer here who was battered as a wife and mother within a so-called Christian marriage and in the name of “Jesus””God” and that marriage, in addition to as a college-educated and otherwise generally independent-thinking person before, to my harm during, and also apparently to my harm as a member of a certain demographic not supposed to exercise such independent thinking, college or no college, according to now longstanding social public policy (not to mention within this–my own– particular family line) afterwards, I have also an experiential sense of the situation from so many years of seeking remedies locally within government enforcement agencies.

(2)

This help-seeking after having just seen SOME remedies locally within government (that domestic violence (cause of action) restraining order with kickout) when it became clear that, as a single mother, no innate and at the time, no burden to society and no risk to my own children living, for the first time, in my own violence-free household, I would have to do battle with my own flesh-and-blood backing my “ex” around the family courts systems, after he (not I) filed for divorce and custody.  What other legal option was there? I was not (and typically other women in this situation are not) in a position to (or wishing to) “battle it out” physically or through the same types of terroristic threats such as I’d had to live before filing for protection, and not being (or wishing to) attempt to extort of use economic destruction as an antagonistic weapon against the father of my children, that pretty much left seeking legal and law-enforcement-backed remedies.

(3)

Of course it impacted my work life, then in “rebuild from scratch while still under assault” mode.  While clients and other support networks might (and for a while, did) provide some buffer, or compensate for my work losses and child support withholding, the family and ongoing litigation situation forced a reversal in my business relationships to those businesses, if they wanted my services, having to help me withstand abuse in some manner; including at times providing transportation to and from the work itself when things got tight after the family court procedures stripped off the restraining order and my personal time was under pressure from the ex on a weekly basis, as well as no safety zone around the home itself between visitations — a situation I’d partially fixed on moving a few miles (less than 15) away years earlier, that is away from the scene of the former (rental) home where I was being battered in front of our kids as they were growing up.

(4)

Basic adjustments or changes in almost ANY category an unmarried or fully-divorced person might make without retribution which I initiated 2001ff on my own were attacked and defamed (within the tribe, sometimes to public officials involved, including police).  Changes any member of this group, legal or not, or their associates (i.e., his girlfriend) were NOT challenged to public, up to and beyond the point of actions (plural) which could be accurately described as felonies — but were not prosecuted as such.  Just as the domestic violence, years ago, had not been prosecuted, even though it did cause serious physical injury as identified in those laws.

(5)

So, the character and nature of even the most basic forms of government — courts, law enforcement, and venues to prosecute crimes by citizens against each other (I believe mostly under state laws, but I’m not a lawyer), are absolutely important to know about and understand whether or not one is involved in a violent relationship.  As I said in January 2011 post (“Happy New Year: What Rhetoric Are You? Father, Mother, or Mediator?”), if you aren’t directly involved, you’re still supporting systems you may expect to “handle it” so you can work and pay bills, raise children (where it applies), or engage in social relationships for personal reasons outside or within the work environments in peace, and WHEN you work, your tax receipts further the situations set in place.

(6)

Meanwhile (as I’ve discovered over the following years) a real “cognitive dissonance” in the public prevails that because there are domestic violence organizations and the VAWA, somehow women in the USA are actually safe to leave their own relationships when children are involved.  As a culture we are taught NOT to “take the law into our own hands” or go vigilante — which is correct.  So, in that situation, there should be corresponding protections — but, thanks to all the “loopholes” left in place — I say by mutual consent with the DV and FR organizations — these protections simply do not exist.  IF we leave, we at some point MUST go through the funnel of “divorce court” and it’s through the changing nature of those family courts which has been coordinated and controlled by specific private associations working in synche across jurisdictions, with each other, and with governments, that the sense of individual (vs. group membership) rights as a human being under state laws (divorce and custody are still under state laws, not federal) has been eroded beyond recognition of anything comparable to the picture the world is being given on the position of women in America.

Regarding the “religious values” and my case:

(7)

FYI, I was not raised particularly Christian, the household did not pray, use the word “God” in a reverential sense, or encourage Bible-reading at all.  We (women) were taken to church “for the exposure” and in hindsight, for my mother may have been a social outlet also.  Our father did not attend.  I became curious as a young adult, and in good part through exposure over time to some of the choral music of the church I was singing (in a public high school) as a powerful, experiential transformative experience associated with both beauty, and centuries of history in Western culture.  I also became interested in the archaeological (history of the manuscripts) and linguistic (history of translations vis a vis battling religions, obviously also one angle from which to understand the political histories of Europe, incl. England, the Middle East and Far East, etc.).

(8)

Having been born a U.S. Citizen and heard most of my life about and involved in certain ways (within the profession) for employers and organizations multi-cultural in nature, and with leadership shared between men and women, I had no basis for assuming there would be such a fight simply for standing up to abuse and attempting to protect my own work life from harassment to the point of driving clients away, and my own concern for their safety too as the incidents escalated (the type of work included but was not limited to working with young children, and their parents in group situations; it also included leadership responsibility for performance situations which, if there was NO boundary upon when or even where incidents might be strategically incited involving my ex and around regular visitation exchanges)

(9)

After enough years of this, I could not longer guarantee I would be able to show up intact and psychologically ready to lead when a traumatic incident had preceded the performance by less than an hour, and in a context where ones AFTER it were also happening — frequently. The most dramatic event was the overnight child-stealing (staged) event making a recent household move and school enrollments of our children on my part, a farce.  I had moved specifically for their schooling in combination with my work, and it was a good move, a legal move, and (offhand) less than 5 miles from the former housing! But the events had been escalating up to that point; in fact I’d attempted to regain a second restraining order the year before so I might simply work, in a context where the father, apparently, was just not “into” looking for work himself (or paying the minimal child support — again, for two children set below welfare levels throughout…).

Return to originating post: (this will, however, bring you to the top of it, not the “point of departure” to this page, which was the link matching the title of this page, right above a bright, lime-green (yellow-green) background section.  🙂