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

PREVIEW

After working on this post and its background material for about a week, I’m publishing it “as is,” with an alert that it may be revised substantially after publication, or further split. It is a good read, however some of its information leads to awarenesses and understandings that are disturbing, if not shocking, on the scope of activities and reach (influence on government policies) by some of the people and organizations covered.

I wouldn’t expect it to be grasped in a single read anyhow. If there are substantial revisions (you’re reading one right now), the purpose is to clarify, or supply missing documentation to support some statements where a post-publication read may reveal the need.

Some areas in this post newer to me, others not entirely new, but not my main area of research (such as the details of the tobacco class action and RICO litigation, although I have looked at periodically and am aware of it as a force in social services programming — such as the First 5-type funds —  at the state levels).** On other areas (backgrounds of some of the greats in psychology or public relations — this post adds a key advertising great name) I may sound more authoritative because I have done more research on them  over the years, as it intersects/overlaps with “Family Court Matters.”

** USDOJ Tobacco Lawsuits and Settlements (Just a~First 5~Footnote to the 2016 TOC Intro. (a Page with WordPress-generated, case-sensitive shortlink ending “-5e8” published Dec. 2016.  Added to the sidebar near top of “Vital Links/Info” menu in Aug. 2017.)

However, probing this new area and historic account of major system movements referenced by the website “SmokersHistory.com,” I am seeing people, foundations, and systems transformation characteristics in common with material I’ve already processed in and around this blog.  If I’d not seen the commonality, I would probably not have referenced so prominently the “smokershistory.com” post, especially not even knowing who its author is.  Because just now I do not know, and because of some of the angry tone of that website, I felt obliged to look further, and more independently at at least its claims which resonated as reasonably probable with what I already knew.

In the process, I ended up learning more about key foundations and people, as well as about organization of the NIH, the NCI (National Cancer Institute) and putting some serious timeline and dates to changes within the NIH, which is to say, also within HHS.  I’m confident most readers also will.  I also found it reassuring not to be the only person (many MIT faculty were asking the same question in the early 1980s) (NYT article links below) asking just HOW MUCH of our current universities and current federal agencies is really “up for sale to the highest bidder,” and how reliable is conflict-of-interest-funded science? Is that what our nation needs?

Answering all these questions is not just a matter of posting links and throwing them up in the air, hoping they come down in some sort of order.  It is a LOT of reading; this type of reading involves processing the information as it comes up with an awareness of reasonably objective (vs. name-calling, or personal-values-laden) categories and at a minimum the ability and willingness to look at tax returns, comparing one to another within organizations or across organizations, and an awareness what decision-making by the very-well-endowed may affect in a given year, whether the “Total Assets” are very very big and growing, or while still large by many standards, being spent down.  And an awareness that when the issue (goal) is steering the direction of a federal agency along with the future of a certain are of scientific research, those determined — with each other — rarely operate through just one organization, foundation, or media at a time.

It takes time, and its part skill, part “art” in the sense of a developed skill over time. I look forward to, ideally, connecting conversing with more people who are willing to use some of these skills and willing to encourage/exhort/persuade others that they are basic to comprehending government — with regard to our individual AND collective relationships to it.  Unfortunately (?), when it comes to many advocacy groups (especially in some well-worn ruts within the family court reform advocacy arena) what I know better is where NOT to find such people, or exhaust personal energies attempting to reason with people who for years have continued to demonstrate that group-membership/brainwashed state on the chosen cause is, like old blue jeans conformed to one’s body countours, just more “fun,” or standing apart, too scary.