In this post, I am reacting to a story which will be posted separately, although excerpts are in my post, and a link at the bottom.  

I do not know “Jen Jewel Brown,” but the writing is compassionate and detailed, not a polemic, or a dry newspaper report.  

This type of writing  — about this international problem — engaging attention, mind, and emotions, prompted me to respond, at length.  Because of the length, the post itself is separate.  

Thank you, “Jen Jewel Brown” for the coverage of this matter, in  tone that engages the emotions, which these should, but doesn’t I feel manipulate them. This is good writing.  Thanks also to the Mom who brought this to my attention on-line.  I do compare notes with women in other countries at time, in hopes that we can do something to stem the tide of child-sacrifices on the altar of “Family.”  

My “target audience” is those “puzzled” by the failures of family law and disturbed, but perhaps not enough so, by why the experts trusted with fixing these things aren’t succeeding.  I do not speak from the “puzzled” perspective, at all.  My recommendations, and appeals are at the end of the post.  

I don’t know whether 3 whole posts should be dedicated to one incident, but there is a “to the contrary” response, blaming the family law system for the casualties (i.e., deaths) because it’s “brutal” to men.  This post has been a half day’s (volunteer, incidentally) work, and the other will have to wait, but I will post the link blaming these children’s deaths (and others) on family law’s “brutal” anti-father bias, and those damn domestic violence folk.  

(This hails from “WATODAY.com” — Breaking News from Perth and West Australia (and was published the week before “Mothers’ Day” in the USA).

Jen Jewel Brown

• May 2, 2009

Suffer the Little Children:

_______________________

But first, a quiz:  did you notice, too?

Does anything seem amiss in the following description?

Try and picture it before reading further….

Dalton was left in a state of intense fear. As he drove to his mother’s with the kids, Fehring gave chase.   She rang his mobile 76 times in that 90-minute drive.

When she hit his mother on arrival, she broke her latest domestic violence order for the second time. Arrested and jailed overnight, and released at midday the next day, Fehring was in a savage mental state.

A.  Does this scenario seem believable, and consistent with other accounts you may have read in the MSM (mainstream media), or statistics you may have studied, about women’s violence towards men (being comparable).

B.  Have you ever heard a case reported where a woman chased down a man in anger, calling him nonstop for one and a half hours (as he was fleeing with his kids), breaking a court restraining order, and still being angry enough to punch his mother in the face?  Or one that fits this pattern? (picture it….)

? ? ? 

To “A.”  The correct answer should be “yes.”  This does not seem to fit the pattern.  And in this case, it shouldn’t —

To “B.”  My answer, which may vary with personal experience, for me, is NO.  I haven’t.  (Groups such as “Mens Rights Agency” etc. would say, it could go either way.  But this is the description I read.  Where is the description of a woman doing this?  AND — —  getting away with being released after arrest to go and do it again?)

Above, I just switched the names, genders, and parties on another (yet another) blunder of Family Law Amended in 2006 to reflect greater empahsis on shared parental responsibility.”  This blunder wasn’t just one single blunder, but a whole series of them resulting in the eventual death of two innocent.  Infants.  In their best interests, of course. He chased her, she didn’t chase him.  He punched HER mother’s nose, and not vice versa.  HE, even after this terrorizing incident, was released from jail the next morning.

She then (it seems) endured a five-hour-long flight, with her mother, from this man, only six days after one infant was born, and couldn’t handle it.  She had a breakdown and was hospitalized en rte.  I can see why her mother might have fled, too.

This is how the family courts responded to that knowledge:

On March 17, 2004, in a 14-minute hearing, the Brisbane Family Court gave interim custody of the infant Patrick and his sister Jessie to Jayson Dalton, former One Nation candidate and long-term batterer.”

Fehring’s solicitor, Ros Byrne, had less than 24 hours warning of Dalton’s bid for custody. She told the judge: “There are domestic violence issues.” That was it.

Fehring, ill, could not be there. “I have no idea why they gave him custody,” she says. “And I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. They were in no danger, they’d been with mum, she was taking care of them with my sister.

“My solicitor knew I was petrified. She told the court there were domestic violence issues and yet the children were handed over to a violent man.”

I don’t know what to do, just me alone, about the nonstop, nonsensical, and unnecessary murder of little kids as a logical consequences of illogical thinking dominating the family courts — not just in my home country (which is not Australia, as below), but around the world.  But I am doing some things (including reporting), and have some suggestions below of what doesn’t work, and possible different approach to take, when going about to “help,” other than picking a side to believe and joining it, or staying “neutral” or remaining “puzzled.”   

I can only assert, and I have some experiential basis to compare these two on, religion, and family law, that the family courts worldwide have become a religion to themselves, and have all the characteristics of a VERY cruel one.  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

(DIGRESSION:)

In wondering who took leave of whose senses when, (i.e., in trying to analyze this), I think we need to also take a more honest look at whether we really want nation-wide educational systems that take kids away from families in order to protect them from the ignorance, supposedly in their families.  Both of these systems are based on similar premises of helping in competent parents and rescuing children from ignorance and illiteracy.  In the U.S., the outcome of this premise, apart from an ever-increasing budget demanded, factionalism within the ranks, and this region also, education, becoming both an industry and a political endorsement or virtual “death-warrant” depending on one’s constituency — it ALSO has resulted in a literacy rate (the very thing it proposed to fix) trailing the developed world, a populace of people that, on graduating from 8th grade school (around 13/14 years old), still can’t read, but CAN get pregnant, or get someone else pregnant.  They can also get shot at, sexually abused by teachers, or locked down if a rumor of someone with a gun (or someone with a real gun) comes on or near the campus.  They are the target of pharmaceutical corporations and text book corporations, and all kinds of political factions.  Currently, in California, they are again arguing over whether a parent can “opt out” for their kids of “LGBT” training — in the same region where, in the family law, another paradigm reigns, that each child needs both parents, and supposedly mothers have an unfair advantage.  (Was that same-sex parents, or not??).  These school graduates, then class-sorted, and intelligence-tested, are coming out, and some of them making it to college (others not), and now we have family law systems teaching adults (both middle-aged adult AND young adults) “parenting.”  Well, what where they doing for the first eight years of government help?  

So I do tend to look, both as to cost and results, at both of these systems as related.  I am wondering, how have we somehow gotten politicians who can’t think straight, or a general public who can’t discern what’s going on with the politicians?  There are indeed many questions. I also note that the U.S. is already one of the highest per capital prison nations around (I heard this, anyhow, as to “developed” nations. If this is development, let’s under-develop for a while, eh?)  The effect being that prison is not exactly a deterrent to batterers because the places are crowded already!  

(END of THAT DIGRESSION, AT LEAST). . . . 

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I have spent close to two decades dealing with abuse, up front first (at home) and thereafter, trying to be female and leave it, with children. Once Internet became accessible, and I regained a bit more freedom to choose who I associated with, I have also been researching and connecting with other men and women both, while also seeing how my personal case progressed through attempting to retain a standing restraining order (i.e., renew it), and how someone coached the person I needed to restrain to dodge it into Family Court, which I can only describe as like “Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.”  (I read this book often during my childhood).  It is as though all the people in there are on psychotropic medicines, but being a world unto themselves, are looking at you as the oddball.  

One of the most serious mistakes a family law innocent can take is to take ANY of its denizens seriously.  To take them at their words, which are many-syllabic and I say, infantile in rationale.  (That includes innocent observers, too….)

Another serious mistake is failure to realize how seriously they take themselves (meaning, each other)(not your laws, or their rules of court, or their professional code of ethics, for the most part), and their inherent authority and what tools are at their disposal to make sure you do, or else! (See recent post, where I discuss “kneeling” in august reverence here).

The SOONER you seriously divest yourself of assuming that terms used bear any relationship to common usage (outside this venue), the better chances of success you will have.   I am a literary sort of person, and invested a lot of time (after successive failures to win a point in this venue) in reading the laws and rules of court.  My opponent didn’t piddle around with this — at all — but went straight for the emotional heartbeat of whatever authority (he) was in front of, and adjusted his story to accommodate.  AND WAS RESPECTED FOR THIS!  He didn’t bother with piddling matters like consistency, truth, or even evidence.  He figured out what resonated and ad-libbed an court order violated himself into being rewarded with total custody of our daughters, no meaningful contact with their mother, and no child support obligations for him — in effect, none of the past due, and the current one promptly stopped.  This dysfunctional system rewarded criminal behavior.  Welcome to “la-la-land,” quite similar to what I had hoped to leave, many years ago, and peaceably rebuild separate lives.  (Oh well!)  

I don’t think or operate like this, in general as a teacher, a mother, or a professional.  Every profession I’ve been involved in to date has some set of principles which, if repeatedly violated, results in failure of the endeavor.  There ARE operational principles in family law too.  The thing is, understanding what they are.  

One clue is to understand as quickly as possible what Family Law Courts are NOT.  ONE “what they are not” is clearly “in the best interests of the children” or the general public, as far as I can tell.  Get comfortable with Upside Down World (as did Alice in WOnderland) or get out.  As fast as possible.  I believe the same thing applies for an abusive relationship — the LESS invested said abuser is in the relationship, the safer everyone SHOULD be.  Family Law, is being amended, however, to tip that scale backwards.

Not just “seeing through a glass, darkly” but literally in reverse — ‘THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS’:

For those who don’t know the book, here’s three references (all to URLs), the first (only) with the classic illustrations of Alice unnaturally elongated, and then squished into a small box.  The message is altered perspectives.  I read this book through repeatedly as  girl (we were not a TV family…), often in one sitting on a weekend.   My legs would fall asleep,  an odd sensation I thought interesting, and I knew that polishing off the book would do result in a numb leg.  That’s how fascinating it was, with its characters, and Alice’s dialogues with herself, and them, getting her bearings, and finally getting out of this dream (or altered state).

The difference between “Alice’s” adventures and entering the world of “family law” (in practically any country, I’m coming to believe) is that it is unbelievably different from inside than outside.  The other difference is, some people do not emerge outside triumphant as this heroine did.  Some children never “age out of the system” because someone kills them first.  Or one (or both) of their parents.  (Are the killers of the other parent half men and half women?   Look it up yourself, not from a mother’s group or a father’s group, but from a more authoritative source!)  

Others become sexual objects, property, or weapons of revenge for others, or money for third parties, although eventually they do reach age 18, forever changed.

The characters, standards, and self-referential dogma of these circles exacerbates prior situations, or maybe incites a few more, while continuing to enunciate, evaluate, proclaim, and judge situations as if the characters judging were the standard, and the intruders, the alien oddballs that needed a sharp lesson in which way is up.

So, Get a Flavor of “Alice,” for Reference (Curiouser and Curiouser).  This figure will help your understanding of the domain of family law and associated realms driven by social sciences (and the funding thereof) more, I feel, than a glossary of words, which taken out of context, might be misinterpreted to actually mean what they say:

From a New York Times blog on migraines (apparently the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) had these:

1.

“The man who gave us “Alice in Wonderland” suffered from migraine. He was also a mathematician, a clergyman, a photographer, and a wit. He was self conscious about a stammer and may have had sexual proclivities for young girls. It is impossible to know exactly what role migraine played in his creative work.”  (itself a commentary that skill in various professions is not an indicator of innocence or guilt in other areas)

2.

And another, with an excerpt, shows a few of the characters, and Alice answering back.  She tries to retain some of her former judgment, common sense, and attempts to make the others adhere to a few rules, but each time has her words twisted.  Perhaps this novel is a more accurate relation of what it’s like to deal with people who have something else on their brains, when yours is safety/solvency/justice (and all the usual things one tends to associate with justice venues).  Alice is the newcomer here to the Mad  Tea Party.  THIS is as close a description of what it’s like in these Family Law Venues as anything else.  Note:  when she emerges, no one else knew what she went through.  

and, from Salon.com, someone’s commentary on it, recalled from her childhood: 

3.

the “children’s tale” was in brilliant ways coded to be read by adults and was in fact an English classic, a universally acclaimed intellectual tour de force and what might be described as a psychological/anthropological dissection of Victorian England. It seems not to have occurred to me that the child-Alice of drawing rooms, servants, tea and crumpets and chess, was of a distinctly different background than my own. I must have been the ideal reader: credulous, unjudging, eager, thrilled. I knew only that I believed in Alice, absolutely.

(AUSTRALIAN) Family Law Act amended in 2006.   

Excerpt:

In 2006, the Family Law Act was substantially amended to reflect a greater emphasis on shared parental responsibility. One of the changes required the court to look at two primary considerations when deciding what is in the child’s best interests. The first is the desire for children to have a meaningful relationship with both parents; the second the need to protect them.

 

WHY?  The story below dates back to 2004!  (Again, two little kids were killed by a man who had violence and punishment of his wife on his mind already, had been acting it, had been demonstrating already his disregard of court orders — i.e., placing himself above the law – and had been arrested for doing so, which only made him still madder, and less in compliance.  This upside down-a-rabbit-hole and Through the Looking Glass logic (itself detached from threats of being murdered, or having one’s kids murdered, or having to live with — and AROUND — that fear, somehow) is NOT “evidence-based” or “In the child’s best interests.”

This fear of also trespassing on an idenfitied batterer’s civil rights overrode the innocent party’s ones.

 The court order making this possible happened because the mindset that prompted the 2006 amendment was already in play, obviously, that even if a man chases down his wife punches her mother, and does things that would put him in jail, and staying there longer, if done to a man, or where a previous relationship had not existed) 

Excerpt:

Child abuse expert emeritus professor Freda Briggs, of the education, arts and social sciences division of the University of South Australia, has firm views about changes needed to family law.

“The level of ignorance by judges and (Family Court) staff about child development, domestic violence and sexual abuse is inexcusable,” she says.

“Judges ignore DV (domestic violence) because (a) some psychologists tell them that men who bash their wives don’t necessarily bash their children and (b) they don’t seem to know that witnessing violence is as damaging to children as being a victim of it. Education is so badly needed.”

I DISAGREE.  I THINK THIS VIEW GIVES TOO MUCH BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT TO JUDGES.  

IF JUDGES ARE IGNORANT OF THE OBVIOUS, THEN THIS SHOWS A LACK OF QUALIFICATION TO JUDGE.

THERE ARE REASONS THEY LISTEN TO PSYCHOLOGISTS, AND THIS _- AND NOT “EDUCATING” THEM ABOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS IN ORDER.  

IGNORANCE IS A CHOICE.  I”M A SURVIVOR OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, SEVERE.  I DI NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE RESOURCES TO INFORM MYSELF ABOUT IT WHILE IN THE SITUATION.  WHEN I GOT OUT, AND THEN WAS PUSHED INTO FAMILY COURT, THE FIRST THING I DID WAS START GETTING INFORMED.  IF I COULD DO THIS, ON A DIMINISHING BUDGET AND AS A SINGLE MOTHER, AND PERSIST IN DOING SO (FOR YEARS) THAN EVEN A JUDGE WITH A VERY BUSY SCHEDULE COULD CHOOSE TO LISTEN TO MORE THAN ONE VIEWPOINT.  SO COULD WHOEVER AMENDED THE FAMILY LAW OF 2006 TO PRODUCE HIGHER RISK OF STORIES LIKE THIS.  

There are number of wise courses of action (hard choices, all of them) which will help those enacting and judging poorly in situations that result in family deaths (unnecessarily) to understand the FIRST priority is to preserve physical life of individuals (that’s what criminal laws, in part, are for), and SECOND, if then, to MAKE DAD HAPPIER BY MORE TIME WITH THE CHILDREN — BUT ONLY IF HE CAN BEHAVE LIKE IN AN ADULT FIRST.  

Another option, which was proposed over a decade ago by a writer on NOMAS (National Organization of Men Against Sexism — which, FYI, this family law act as amended seems to be, as it was addressed primarily to giver fathers (not mothers) more contact with their kids after divorce).  One might be a rigid and STRICT sorting system to discourage violence against women, which when kids are present, is a horrible role model:  (A)  Case Flow.  You commit violence, you lose access to your kids — PERMANENTLY.  This is called “deterrent.”  

Then there would be nothing much to discuss in family law except distribution of any property.  And I personally don’t care if anyone who assaults an intimate partner even TWICE, let alone in such awful manners, is financially penalized either.  Why shouldn’t he be?  The devil didn’t make him do it.  His unemployment didn’t make him do it.  SHE didn’t make him do it.  Abuse, like ignorance, is a choice.  It’s a two year old in a grown up body trying to make the world fit his (or her) own definition of how the world should be, and making sure he is the center of attention (via tantrum, throwing things, etc.), until the world IS changed to accommodate.

Maybe it’s time, and maybe there is a way (in our respective countries) we can get the conversation away from sick social science theories (which many participants, FYI, may not agree with) AND bribery (job -referrals, cronyism, or whatever it took to amend Australia’s Family Law in 2006 to better reflect what’s happening in America, which, FYI, we cannot here keep up with the incidents that are quite similar to the one below, where “Dalton” kills his own offspring because he’s mad.  Or can’t get his own way, even AFTER he gets custody.  “It’s about control, dude.”

The alternative is to penalize the rest of society, and especially the target.  The alternative is NOT to, as we do in the US, “promote healthy marriage” and then leave doing so up to characters that think like this!  (See “Mad Hatter Tea Party.”).  The alternative is a nonstop, constant drain of time, and transfer of wealth — from the general public, and also from one parent to another, or from both parents to attorneys (and psychologists, etc.).  The alternative is a total drain on public funds that are needed for more noble causes.

But speaking in public and anywhere else as though judges really are uninformed on the fact that domestic violence occurs, and that disturbed parents sometimes kill their wives, themselves, bystanders, relatives, and responding police officers in the context of a woman — that is called “enabling” talk.  It makes excuses.  Take my word, or ask someone else.  Good grief, get real!  Like Alice in Wonderland, who found herself there, and conversed with the various characters, and emerged with her self-respect intact back into the real world, it is necessary after frequenting such discussions, to get back to reality.  This is NOT about justice!

(I know of only ONE  single high-profile case reported in my area where the killer was a woman except ONE, in the many years I have been watching and noticing this, since I left my own situation.  That case has some very unique circumstances to both the marriage, and the custody hearings, and I also know the judge involved).  She tried to defend herself, and went to jail.  It sold a lot of newspapers. I have also seen the countenance, attitudes, and behaviors of family court personnel in the context of some extremely high-profile, headline making murders, one of them a triple murder, in the context of a woman leaving a batterer.  We had a man who killed his wife on a weekend exchange, with kids present, buried her body, and was eventually convicted without the body!, but plea-bargained himself down by promising to show the police the body.  Not until he was actually convicted did he change his “I didn’t do it!” story for a minute.)

We had another one where a man shot the cousin (in the face) because he couldn’t find the wife, who he was after.  In the process, he also tore up a business front and threatened his (brave) adult daughter, who tried to get the gun from him.  We had a woman who had been cautious and attempting to keep a low profile, but she went to church on a weekday morning, apparently before work.  Her ex ambushed her, gunned her down in front of witnesses.  There IS no safe place, it seems, when a mad “ex” is intent on getting even, and obeying laws is the LAST thing at certain times on the brain.  I referred to that last case in my court hearing (same city), loud, and clearly.  My comment was deleted from (never made) the court transcript.  In this hearing (if I have which one right), I had PTSD triggered in recounting the last time I had to interact with my ex, which itself had so frightened me, I swore internally that I would never, the rest of my life, put myself in a position where I had to see this man in person, I could not handle it.  I only had to see him a few more times (THAT year), and stalking has been an issue, and caused me to reframe my livelihood and daily lifestyle ever since, negatively so.  It has also put a severe damper on my plans to assert any future legal rights, as safety is now a definite issue.  

How’d you like to make those choices?  Leave your kids with a known batterer who won’t obey court orders (any of them, basically) and has not been held accountable by any authority.  And do this after many years in court hearings, and after many years in domestic violence.  

My case was nowhere near as awful as this woman Fehring, who in 2004 lost her kids after trying to save them (but family law orders curtailed her ability to do so), and I’m struggling.  She is speaking out, and so are many others, in various countries.    We are definitely struggling on many fronts, and we don’t want domestic violence to go down another generation!

We also (I deal with enough mothers to say I speak for at least many of them) cannot afford the luxury of believing these things persist because of lack of judicial EDUCATION.  It’s more a lack of judicial BACKBONE and ETHICS.  And it’s not only the judges (although they as the ones signing orders, command the most obivous authority).  We hope that people who are not traumatized themselves, or still have some source of income to sustain themselves, and whose children are NOT at risk for speaking out, to FIRST divest themselves of a few myths:

The judicial and legal and custody evaluator (etc.) circles are indeed capable of being educated, and they ARE.  If you want to know “by whom” (rather than continue to wonder, after the next incident, “why can’t we get it through?” to these circles), see other pages on my cite, or a few other links I’ve recommended.  Study the organizations, grants, funding, and legal structure in YOUR system.  Study also who is pre-empting (it happens, trust me) organizations that once existed to help battered women, or protect them, or advocate, and see who is funding them.  For a dialogue on this, see “justicewomen.org.”  It’s the best explanation I’ve run across.  See also California NOW (CANOW.org) web page on the family court system — it has a history of organizations that is a clue.  See National Alliance for Family Court Justice, which connects the dots better than most places I’ve seen (there is a lot of text to process, but DO SO!).  

Dedicate a time to becoming an expert yourself.  Then learn to distinguish between experts.

And follow the money trail.  Money talks.

WHo was this Dalton man, that murdered kids?  It appears he had a high profile.  Maybe we should, as a public, restrict our adulation to people whose personal lives measure up.  If people hold a public profile, then their personal lives count.  Why shouldn’t they?  These are means by which someone who has been voted into an office or appointed to one, can be judged.  

You cannot have justice when the doors are closed.  It is not going to happen.

You cannot have justice when you don’t know who’s funding and appointing the judges.

it is very difficult in our current lifestyles (I speak for my acquaintance with the US, and I know a good deal of it, particularly as an educator and arts professional) to find time to study and know what our government is doing.  I found (personally) the educational system here to be the greatest timesoaker for my own children and myself, and I also witnessed this same system in poor and in rich neighborhoods.  My perception of the justice in the richer community is that it was far harder on women.  The general level of violent crime appears to be kept down more by the affluence, but this does not reflect, that I can tell, a drop in the domestic violence crime, or even femicides.  This is a different type of crime than street crime.  

Even the Bible has an entire Book called “Judges” and directly ties the welfare of the nation to the ethics (in the context, of Israel’s religion, which for them was a theocracy).  When the judges screwedup, the whole nation suffered.  It’s no different today..

I do not know of any other way than enough of the public — or well-positioned public — coming out of what I call the collective “trance” that “government” means “good guys” and that our job in life is to just go about our business and hope that they are going about theirs properly.  My faith says we are to pray for these people, but with prayer comes a duty to watchfulness.  This will help you become a more fully alert — and helpful to your neighbors, next time they go “through it” — citizen.  It is, really, more important than how successful you are in your profession, I’d say.  How successful is it necessary to be to have “made” it?

We also need to listen to older generations talk about the transitions they have been through, and resist institutions that separate old from child-raising from young, except in highly mediated situations.

Well, this has become a post, so the story I am blogging about will be in the next one. . . . 

Please wake up, and help join men and women who are studying these topics. LISTEN to the stories of mothers who have lost their kids to violence, or to no-contact or supervised orders only with as much interest as you LISTEN to the stories and blogs of men complaining about the shoe being on their foot.  LISTEN also (I posted yesterday) the parallel stories about the “state” removing children from competent parents.   The social “science” paradigm is a dangerously presumptive one.  It applies general principles, often arrived at without proper input from the people they affect, does so whimsically and unevenly.  

The instrument itself is too blunt and too powerful.  We need more stories like Alice In Wonderland, and more symbolic reference points to tell the truth about the family courts, and cut through the “therapeutic jurisprudence” to recognize where jurisprudence is itself iatrogenic.

We need to start looking back and talking back.  It’s a commitment, for sure, but look at what’s at stake.

It will require losing some of one’s time, and probably personal peace, unless you are carrying it on the inside.

I hope some of this post sank in, as I wrote it in one sitting and entirely in response to a single, tragic, story (among many) that family law apparatus in Australia chose to ignore.  Someone has to address the conflict of interest between criminal and civil and family law in your country.

If you want to know where a lot of this came from, it is, I believe, from an organization in the US, which has been proselytizing like Jehovah’s Witness, only knocking on different doors.  They have money, they have (self-referential, but still it has an impact) prestige, they have technical superiority to MOST women’s websites, or DV websites I’ve seen.  You cannot judge the truth or falsehood of a viewpoint by how glitzy its website is.  The one I most respect, currently, has the least “glitz,” but I have spoken personally with the owner and checked out the facts.  This blog is not glitzy, but show me where else on the web someone is posting the links to the funding, AND the organizations behind the funding, AND some of the key Presidential (US) letters driving this.  And I’m not done yet.

Look at the “AFCC”  Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, a group that was run initially out of the Los Angeles County Courthouse address, but illegally so, and not incorporated as an entity (according to my single reading of this) for many, many years, until they were caught, and finally did.  This means that they cheated the American taxpayers by failing to pay taxes.  Money laundering appears to have been involved.  Initially custody evaluators got free tuition (to seminars) and attorneys did not.  Judges taught some of them.   This group has CONSISTENTLY ignored that “PAS” is junk science, and ignored the published criminal prosecutors reading of it, too.  If they had been operating in the case of Fehring v. Dalton, they would have recommended ordered Ms. Fehring into a parenting plan to adjust her unreasonable fear of her exhusband, and if she didn’t fork over her kids for visitation, they woudl have jailed HER, not him.  They are highly influential.  Their PAS man was a known pedophile who eventually committed suicide.  We are STILL in our courtrooms having male judges caught with their pants down or their hands up their secretary’s blouse, making her life hell, or judges taking kickbacks to send innocent juveniles away (I just recited only:  NJ, TX, PA examples.  The NJ judge had a porno collection that I couldn’t even stand to read about, when I heard.  He flew to Russia to have sex with a boy, and as I recall, had it filmed).  Women judges are/can be just as dishonest, cruel, and callous in their decisions.  I have sat under some of them.  It’s not JUST about gender, it’s about the system of family law, and the class, and information, and associations, gap between this system and the general public.

Then go read their history.

Then go look at their pamphlets and some of the personnel.  (I did).  This group is international in scope.  It appears that different countries have similar type groups with other names.  

Other issues include retaliation by groups and associations upon ethical and honest judges and professionals.  This retaliation can be as severe as it is upon a parent leaving abuse, or a parent reporting child abuse.  

MOST OF US do not want to think that people who THINK like this could be running not only our local, but also some of our national policies.  However, the fact is, that any position of power is going to attract people with noble purpose, and corrupt people.  It is also going to attract people who THINK their purpose is noble, but will commit crime, do secret deals, and ride roughshod over anyone who gets in their way.  This is what I would call a “godless” perspective — if you can get away with something, so much the better.  It also views certain classes of people as inferior BECAUSE of their class.  (This attitude is also common religious circles too, obviously).  

THE QUESTION THEN BECOMES, IF THIS IS NOT YOU, THEN WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSIBLITY?  ARE YOU WILLING TO GIVE UP A FEW ILLUSIONS (AND THEREBY HELP) or ARE YOU GOING TO CONTINUE JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS COVER, A PERSON BY HIS (OR HER) GENDER OR MARITAL STATUS, AND WHETHER OR NOT IT’S OK FOR A DOUBLE-STANDARD OF JUSTICE TO BE THE RULE, NOT THE EXCEPTION.

ARE YOU WILLING TO TRY TO DEFANG THE “TOTALITARIAN” ELEMENT IN YOUR COUNTRY BEFORE IT TAKES YOUR CHILDREN (AND MEANS TO;  EAT, SHELTER, AND DEFEND YOURSELF) UNDER THE PREMISE THAT “You People” cannot protect yourselves from yourselves?  

Any group that claims it is going to eradicate violence, crime, murder, kidnappings, theft, and similar awful behaviors, from the face of the planet is narcissistic.  This ain’t likely to happen.  I would not follow anyone piping that tune.  Newflash:  Obama ain’t going to.

I would similar not follow any crew that promises it’s going to raise the national total educational level to competitive (on my dollar) until it’s already shown some significant successes.  SHOWN them, not just proclaimed them to exist where they don’t, and out of context.

I have some perspective to say this:   I was a top performer at a top suburban public high school, according to its standards, and KNOW that I was bored in school.  I have worked in a variety of schools and attended school in another country.  I have also (unfortunately) hung around a lot of educators in my time (not my first choice of associates, I’d rather hang out with someone passionate about WHAT they teach rather than HOW (everyone else) should be teaching).   I then raised my own daughters in tough c ircumstances to a level of all-round excellence, and watched an educator who had never been a parent come after me, having mentally deleted both my own personal history (which was known to include violence and professional-level teaching ability, and performance) at the time.  There was no way a rational person could have considered me under-educated or incompetent to raise my own kids.  Only an Alice in Wondcrland character, who had his brain filled of theory and belief such that there was no room for input (from the eyes, ears, and neighborhood schools, etc.) would have come to this conclusion.  

I was faced with an anomaly and had to make up my mind how to view this.  In understanding a few more facts (which I didn’t have at the time) and continuing to listen to the changes of tone, language (and a fast “flip”) in behavior from this person, and put this into the larger contextt, I came to the conclusion that ONE thing that allowed such a person to come up with such an idea was the educational theories he’d (just recently) been exposed to, without sufficient humbling experience to challenge them — such as becoming a parent, or dealing with enough of them personally, to get some insight). 

Which comes to another thing to be studied in family law:  Australia’s system has a history.  If you’re local, keep posting it!  Talk it up.  Send a clear message that it is being looked at and expected to hold to a standard.  It is best, I think, to get this information OUT before there are gag orders on it.  

There are organizations and associations that screen, teach and certify people to practice in MOST professions.  These need to be looked at.  I have.  I have seen what it takes tobecome a “family law specialist” in my state, and this explains to me where the “gap” is, and why, and why when I go into court again, should this be required, I will not, I am sure tolerate any family law attorney to represent me.  Why?  They are not self-aware enough of personal biases.  I am not sure whether I would even want such input in preparing information, because to date, the few attorneys I’ve been in front of (or hired) have all encouraged me to downplay and sign away, compromise, and bargain things that were non-negotiable in my case. This is how we get sold down the river at times — lack of information.

Even then, I’d say, “well, you can experiment on someone else’s children, thank you — and pay for it yourself, or they can pay.”  These are simply Pied Pipers.  Don’t dance to that tune.  The fairy tale (if you know it) exists for a reason, and we’ve come to an age when I think those old fairy tales are a lot more reliable indicators of truth than, say:

“Evidence of Adapation of Parenting Programs to Father Engagement” (or whatever the forgettable phrase was on THAT grant opportunity)

This post has not been proofread (and probably will not), you just got a piece of my mind and heart.  I appeal to people who say they are concerned and want to help, to do so in an intelligent, and experience-informed manner.  

If a fire is burning that is destroying homes, building, and costing lives, talk to some firefighters!  Find out what’s feeding it, and how to smother the principle needs of any fire.

Fuel, Oxygen, Heat (as the type of fire may be or may not, or a “chemical” burn).  

And figure out, if you have a faith in a supernatural being, your relationship with Him, Her, It, or Them.  

Buckle down and get ready for the ride.  You will need a seat belt for sure.

The subject matter that prompted this post is in the next one, although this is the link:

Suffer the Little Children– to reach Adulthood!

“On March 17, 2004, in a 14-minute hearing, the Brisbane Family Court gave interim custody of the infant Patrick and his sister Jessie to Jayson Dalton, former One Nation candidate and long-term batterer.”

My next post will post this.