The topic of mediation, especially mandatory mediation, is a hot one within the family court venue, and particularly among domestic violence advocates.  Many have come up opposed to it.

On the other side of the fence (??) are those who are advocating mediation to cut down on the caseload in these courts, and attempt to reconcile opposing parties for the best interests of the children, supposedly.

While looking through the RAND corporation policy papers, available on-line, I was astounded to find almost nothing whatsoever on violence against4 women, or women per se (although there were articles about the education gap for men and boys of color, with the kneejerk recommendation, more and earlier preschool.  I happen to disagree, I think there’s enough subject matter for child development scholars to study throughout the educational, penal, and court institutions in this country already…).  There was next to nothing current on domestic violence, although a few articles dating back to 2004/2005 actually used this word.

However, there is this interesting take on mediation.  My limited technique can’t paste in the image, so I recommend taking a look at:

All I’m going to say about Our Bodies, Ourselves, is that it is reminiscent of the feminist movement (after all, these ARE our bodies, if it’s women involved), and another era.  For more info, read Dr. Phyllis Chesler, including Women & Madness, Mothers on Trial, and Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman.  Don’t forget to also take a serious look at Honor Killings vs. Domestic violence (articles), and so forth.

Now about, Our Courts Ourselves — I believe  a takeoff on that title:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/2005/RP1090.pdf

“Our Courts, Ourselves:  how the Alternative Dispute Resolution Movement is Reshaping Our Legal System.”

It says plainly what I have deduced, in using the phrase “Designer Family” and in sarcastically stating that a world without conflict IS indeed possible — if everyone is drugged, asleep, or simply not paying attention.  . . . .  Which appears to be an imminent possibility, or business goal in some arenas…  I mean, as slavery is supposedly abolished, SOMEONE has to do life’s dirty work, for cheap or free….  Women got the vote, heck what next?  ???

This tends to verify my observations:  (from page 168, Section II, “Puritans Populists and Utopians.”)…

Members of America’s utopian societies yearned for social harmony and eschewed conflict.  One of their goals was to eliminate adversarial legal processes.  In Edward Bellamy’s Utopia, depicted in his wildly popular 1988 novel Looking Backward, citizens are inducted into the armies of a corporatist state into which all contribute and from which all receive the necessities of life….

Are you frightened yet? 

As communitarian values replace private interest, economic competition, social conflict and adversarial processes are eliminated…Wise citizens take the place of judges and juries in deciding how and when to punish bad behavior, lawyers’ services become superfluous, and the law itself is discarded.

(My quote here, since I can’t cut & paste from the pdf, is from memory, for speed — check source yourself)

Bellamy’s novel inspired a new political movement called Nationalism, comprised of a series of grassroots organizations dedicated to creating a utopian society devoid of economic and social conflict and gave rise to the establishment of the Populist Party.. . .

Many in the Nationalist Movement had ties with Theosophy, a contemporary religious movement….  substituting “Universal brotherhood and cooperation for competition..”  but the roots of Theosophy lay in spiritualism, and elevating the divine spirit within the individual.  Their leaders eschewed social justice and activism, and eventually the movements parted paths.

To those who are somewhat versed in one of the “Abrahamic” religions (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, Islam), this utopian vision and non-involvement in social justice are at odds with fundamental beliefs that man’s nature needs redemption (i.e., “the Fall”) and that a future resurrection and judgement await. 

At the very least, then, this utopian philosophy goes against the core of a substantial portion of the world’s population.  Experientially, someone has to become the “wise citizens” and of a supposedly superior, elitist, caste to inform and educate the plebians in how to get along.

The philosophy that CONFLICT is bad, and that PEACE AT ANY PRICE (and sacrificing safety, or justice in the process) is the primary good is — to my reading — a violence against the concept of justice, balance and equity. 

Hence, the jargon calling a divorce or process in which women protesting abuse of themselves, or their children, even when sexual abuse has been involved and documented, a “high-conflict” custody comes from this worldview.  That is not the primary characteristic — only according to a certain view.

As to “our bodies, ourselves,” an 11 year old in Wisconsin and (I recently heard) a 14 year old in Michigan, have learned that they are property, not people.  Michaela Tipton went back to her father to get her mother out of jail.  A young man, A student, spent a night in detention for refusing to visit his father also. 

 http://www.macombdaily.com/articles/2009/11/21/news/srv0000006883874.txt#blogcomments
Teenager incarcerated for refusing to visit his father
Published: Saturday, November 21, 2009

A 14-year-old boy was thrown into the county youth home overnight and handcuffed for about four hours after refusing to follow a judge’s order to visit his father, as part of an ongoing custody case.

The boy, Jacob Mastrogiovanni of Warren, was ordered Thursday to spend three days in the youth home by family court Judge John Foster, who lifted the sentenced Friday following protests by his mother and a night of incarceration for her son.

The uncommon occurrence of a contempt of

court sentence for a child in a child custody dispute angered his mother, Dawn Platevoet, and several of her relatives, including the boy’s grandmother. They picketed in front of the county courthouse in downtown Mount Clemens on Thursday and Friday, garnering media attention.
“A judge shouldn’t throw an all-A student in jail for refusing to visit his father,” Platevoet said. “There are other ways to handle the situation, and apparently the judge agreed because he let him out.”
Jacob was slated to remain in the Juvenile Justice Center until 7 p.m. Sunday but was released by Foster about 12:30 p.m. Friday. Foster had Jacob brought from the youth home in handcuffs about 8:30 a.m. Friday to appear in front of him in Macomb County Circuit Court later that morning. Jacob waited in a holding cell.

Moments after he was released Friday, Jacob said Foster didn’t specify why he freed him.
“He said that I don’t decide whether I see my dad or not,” Jacob said. “It was kind of like a warning, this time, I guess.”
Foster’s secretary said the judge did not want to comment.

Jacob and Platevoet wouldn’t delve into many details of why he won’t visit his father, Victor Mastrogiovanni of Chesterfield Township. She said Jacob began resisting in July following an unspecified incident.

They said when Jacob has visited Mastrogiovanni recently that he is forced to stay in his room without any contact.

On Foster’s order, the three have been attending weekly counseling sessions since early September. {{That’s the racket, folks…}}  But they and the therapist have been unable to resolve the disagreement.

Platevoet and Mastrogiovanni never married and have had some disputes for years {{OBviously.  The boy is 14!}}regarding custody and support issues, they said.

Mastrogiovanni, who has been married for two years and has a 15-month-old child, [[IE 2nd marriage, new kid]]said he did not want to comment specifically about the dispute.

“I love my kid very much and want what’s best for him,” he said.

Platevoet said she would like her son to visit his dad but can’t force him.

“What am I supposed to do? Grab him by the back of the head and put him in the car?” she said. “He’s a teenager and wants to do teenager things.”

She said Jacob “listens to me” about other things but not about the visits

//

ANYHOW, you are either awake or asleep in this matter about trying to create a utopian society where wise citizens (NOT due process and facts/evidence, etc.) choose punishments, and where all the requirements of life are also obtained from the state.  Hence, “Health & Human Services.” 

The question is, Who is Being Served?  And being served What?

2nd largest federal expenditure, Educational Department, making sure (that’s a laugh!) no child left behind.  What isn’t being openly marketed — where they are marching, goosestep style, who is paying the drummer, and what is the origin of the tune.  Not only can we not make medical or health choices for our kids, we as a populace aren’t smart enough to resource or network our life choices and also help them get educated.

You cannot really deal with the courts entirely separate from the educational system.  For one, the courts are trying to run cleanup after educational (moral/value) failures, all at the expense of taxpayers (not those who can write off expenses as business owners and investors, etc.).  For another, I am simply not interested in an oligarchy, a dictatorship, or any of that.  After all, it’s my own body here, and the children that came out of it are NOT state property, or fodder for others’ professional careers in psychology, mental health, law, pharmacology, etc.  I respected their father’s contact with them, and the law.  In return from this, I lost all contact with them, and made a mockery of the process.

Several entities are laughing all the way to the bank on this one.  The thing is, to get an audit of those statements. 

Anyhow — take a look at that rand document — it’s for sure informative.  Then also realize that what takes place through the courts, when it does — that’s not mediation in the proper sense of the word.  That’s basically program marketing, and “required outcome enforcement” from things such as the Access Visitation Grants, Responsible Fatherhood/Marriage, and such-like. 

Enough for today!

OK, skim through the articles below — I did.  And here are a few questions.

(1) Was this a “family” matter?  If so, how many states (and countries) are involved, to date?

(2) The little boy involved was 4 years old (and now his Mom is dead and father in jail, on $2 million bail).  He was in a fatherless home. To correct this situation, his father (allegedly) hired someone ELSE to kill her so he could get custody (since the courts weren’t about to fork over the kid),  solving the “noncustodial parent” issue, and so forth. 

My question is, whose mug shot isn’t up here? 

Three arrested in Smith murder

Posted: Nov. 19, 2009 

(1)

3 arrested in Oconomowoc slaying; plot to gain child’s custody alleged By Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Updated: Nov. 19, 2009 1:31 p.m.

Waukesha — Kimberly Smith was murdered in her Oconomowoc home Oct. 1 as part of a plot for her ex-boyfriend to get custody of their 4-year-old son, authorities said Thursday in announcing the arrests of the ex-boyfriend and two other men on homicide charges. Darren Wold, 41, the ex-boyfriend, is accused of conspiring with a longtime friend, Jack E. Johnson, 65, formerly of Waukesha, to kill Smith, and Justin Patrick Welch, 26, of French Camp, Calif., is accused of traveling to Wisconsin and stabbing her to death, Chief David Beguhn said during a news conference at the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department. Authorities on Oct. 27 had identified Welch as a suspect in the homicide after his DNA was found on a knife and latex/vinyl-type gloves recovered in a sewer drain near Smith’s home in the 300 block of S. Maple St., according to court records. An arrest warrant was issued for Welch that charged him with first-degree intentional homicide. At the time, police said Welch might be driving a Jeep Patriot that was reported stolen in California. Investigators launched a nationwide manhunt for Welch, and through their investigation, connected him to Johnson, of Obrero Rosarito, Mexico, Beguhn said. Authorities placed an alert with U.S. Customs and Border Protection asking that they be notified if Johnson attempted to cross the border. Johnson was taken into custody about 1:10 p.m. Wednesday as he attempted to enter the United States. About 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, Welch was arrested by Mexican authorities after a brief vehicle pursuit near Rosarito, Mexico. Police were attempting to stop the Patriot because it was stolen, Beguhn said. Welch was turned over to U.S. authorities. Both Welch and Johnson are being held in the San Diego (Calif.) County Jail. Johnson is charged with party to first-degree intentional homicide. Wold was arrested Wednesday night at his Lubbock, Texas, home. He is being held in jail there on a charge of party to first-degree intentional homicide. All three men are being held on $2 million bail. Smith, 39, was found dead about 9:30 a.m. Oct. 1 in her home in the 300 block of S. Maple St. Her hands were bound and she had been stabbed a number of times, court records state. Her 4-year-old son, Jackson, was home at the time of the slaying but did not witness the killing. Smith’s current boyfriend, who lived with her and Jackson, found Smith’s body in the living room and called 911. The boyfriend said he had left for work about 6 a.m. and returned after learning that Smith didn’t show up at her job, according to Beguhn. Welch’s ties to Wisconsin are not known, and investigators do not know if Smith knew him. Smith’s relatives told investigators that they do not know Welch.

(2)

Oconomowoc investigators get break in murder of Kimberly Smith

WITI-TV, MILWAUKEE – Oconomowoc investigators get their first and only break in in the murder of Kimberly Smith. Smith was found dead on October 1st. Tuesday morning, a Waukesha County judge issued an arrest warrant for a California man, Justin Welch.

Police collected evidence from an Oconomowoc home on the morning of October 1st. Last Friday, a DNA analysis of several items matched the DNA of 26-year-old Justin Welch.

Welch is now the focus of a nationwide manhunt. The Waukesha County arrest warrant is for first degree intentional homicide. He’s suspected of killing Kim Smith. Welch is wanted in California on a felony, no-bail warrant for a parole violation.

Police are now trying to determine the connection between Welch and Wisconsin. They suspect Welch and Smith may have connected on the internet.

If you have any information about where authorities might fight Welch, you’re urged to call the Oconomowoc Police at 262-567-4401 or the Waukesha Co. Sheriff’s Dept. at 262-446-5070.

(3)

Kim Smith remembered for big smile, thoughtfulness

Oconomowoc murder victim identified

By Katherine Michalets and Jeff Rumage Freeman Staff

Oct 3, 2009

. . .

According to a news release, Smith was found dead in the living room of her residence at 334 S. Maple St. The police department was notified by dispatch at 9:32 a.m., and officers and rescue personnel arrived on the scene within two minutes. 

    Oconomowoc Police Chief David Beguhn said the boyfriend that she lived with left for work at 6 a.m. When he called her at the Waukesha County Department of Health and Human Services where she works, he was told she had not come in, so he returned home to find her dead body, Beguhn said. 

    Police believe the murder took place sometime between 6:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.

    Smith was also living with her son, who was unharmed by the event. After the murder, the young boy underwent a forensic interview at a specialty care center in Waukesha. Based on those interviews, it did not appear the young boy witnessed the event, Beguhn said. The boy is staying with his grandmother, he said.

    Online court records show Smith was involved in a yearlong custody battle with the father of the boy. Beguhn said police contacted the man Thursday, and he was in Texas, where he lives.

Police File Four Sealed Search Warrants In Oconomowoc Homicide Case

No Arrests Have Been Made

POSTED: 6:50 pm CDT October 6, 2009
UPDATED: 10:47 am CDT October 7, 2009

etc.

QUIZ:

• These are the ages involved:

26, 4, 65, 41, 39

• These are the geographies (state/country):

Wisconsin, California, Texas, Mexico

• These are the last names, not including the boy:  Welch, Wold, Johnson, Smith, Beguhn

Question1:  Who’s who?

Match age to state to last name — quick now…  can you keep them straight?

Question 2: How many generations, so far, has this one event affected?

(answer — apparently, four.  youngster, 20 yr old, 40yr olds, 65 yr old.)

Question 3:

• Did anyone (article) mention domestic violence yet?  Want to place a bet whether there was or was not such a criminal record?  (I’m thinking, probably not).  Would a restraining order have helped her somehow?  Was she aware of her danger (lethality assessments)?    (Note:  3rd party involved, bound hand and feet, she maybe didn’t have her first cup of coffee or get out the door to work yet).  Was she in an  unsafe place?  YES:  Her home, after a custody battle.

Question(s) 4: 

What was Dad doing in Texas?  Did having Dad in Texas make anyone safer?

Question(s) 5ff:

Did fast response by police, or a live-in boyfriend make her any safer?  No, she’s dead.  But his fast response helped probably catch the killer.

Did her expertise in Health &Human Services make her any more alert to the danger?  (Apparently not).

Finally:

Do I have time to analyze this one? 

Answer:  no.

Instinctive response  (no wrong answer):

What word comes to your mind in regards this case?  Summarize/label it…. Answer must be in 3 words or less.

You know what word comes to mine?  In light of the:  Wisconsin/California/Texas/Mexico connection, plus a 4 year old boy and willingness to KILL to get custody….  what a dedicated father. . . .

Child-trafficking.  But maybe that’s just me.

Sure, it’d have been better if they’d had a better marriage, or married, or stayed married.  But suppose there had been a mismatch, and there had been violence — should she have kept herself and her son around for more?

What about that shared parenting theme?  Wasn’t Dad interested, or wasn’t he allowed?  It’s dangerous pissing off a Dad these days, apparently….  Maybe that’s part of the formula with this fatherlessness thing.  It’s countercultural, it’s not accepted culturally, and that can get REAL sticky with cultures (or religions) that place themselves above the law.  Or individuals.

Here’s another excerpt from (I think) first article link, above.  Catch the drift?

Long-running dispute

Smith was entangled in a custody dispute with Wold, and the proceedings were favoring her.

Question:  Which one of my posts handles the hazards of actually winning in court? 

Court records show that Smith and Wold, who previously lived together in Germantown and in Pennsylvania, have been fighting for more than two years in Washington County Circuit Court over custody of the boy.

As these things can go, that ain’t ’squat.’  Look at the Oconto County, WI case.  There are ways to keep it going, and going, and going. . . .

In July, Wold was ordered to spend 60 days in jail after being held in contempt of court, but the jail time was to be imposed only if he failed to follow certain conditions for a year, records show.

He had lied about where he was living and failed to make court-ordered payments.

LYING, in court especially, about where one is living is a character indicator.  Courts ought to wake up.  Guess this was a family court…

QUICK now, before you’ve thought about this, one there are others.  I can’t keep up, myself…

This may be the world’s quickest post — newsprint articles that raised questions in my faith-filled but sexist/abusive-institution-rejecting mind:

These came up, searching for the Garrido article, and are on-theme:  Connection between religion and child or minor sexual abuse.

Sorry about the dark topic, but without some sunlight, such things just continue….

January 24, 2005

Deal exposes dark chapter from De La Salle’s history

Alleged molestations have left lasting scars

========

from THIS newsvine site, MSNBC article, here is a victim’s response:

Earlier, I (and colleagues — see those buttons on my blogroll!) posted  on the 30-plus individuals involved in ONE mother reporting sexual molestation (and more) of her little girl in Wisconsin,  after CPS workers in 2 counties confirmed it. 

As reported Oct. 17th (DV awareness month, much?) on another blog (calling her a “teen” daughter was inaccurate.  Though the abuse started earlier, my understanding is, she is 11).  You should click on this link also — someone’s comment (wife of a police officer) is relating another account.

Wisconsin Mom Lorraine Tipton (Oconto County) is under fire because her teen daughter refuses to go on visitation with her abuser father, who makes her sleep on the floor and drives with her drunk in the car.  The father, Craig Hensberger, managed to convince the father’s rights judge, Judge David Miron, in power there, to threaten Lorraine with jail if her daughter does not go.  Her daughter was in the emergency room this past Thursday night, sick and frantic, and is currently home with her mom, medicated and scared.  The abuser’s mommy has not picked her up as she threatened to do.  So Lorraine faces jail on Monday.  Please say a prayer for her. 

Here’s a StopFamilyViolence release on it at “RandiJames.com”  File it under “a Thanksgiving to remember…”  I guess…

Daughter Won’t Visit Father? Jail Mommy!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 19, 2009

Contact:
Irene Weiser
Stop Family Violence
iw@stopfamilyviolence.org

WHY IS THIS MOTHER IN JAIL?

(Oconto Falls, WI) Today an Oconto County family court judge sentenced a mother to jail because she was unable to force her daughter to court mandated visitation with her abusive father. The daughter will be sent to foster care if she refuses to live with her father while the mother serves her sentence.

Circuit Judge David Miron sentenced Lorraine Tipton to 30 days in county jail for contempt of court, for her failure to follow the custody order requiring her daughter to live every other week with her father, Craig Hensberger.

 

NOTE:  Anyone see this work in reverse, father jailed for refusing visitation to mother?  If so, let me know — it’s my situation.  I miss my (daughters) too!  And if I file for a contempt (further upsetting someone) knowing the courts or enforcement will do nothing, leaving an angry male on the loose.  Same deal with “certifiably insane restraining orders.”  But there’s not a single qualm about restraining protective mothers.  Fork them little girls over, we want a fresh supply of young flesh, plus that adrenaline rush that comes from dominating a woman,  for those who feel entitled, or have become addicted to this need.

These are country-wide, generational nightmares.  When’s the wakeup call?  What will it take to stop it?

 

“She’s terrified of going; she has night terrors and severe anxiety” says Tipton, who admits her daughter hasn’t visited with her father since August.

“I thought the court was supposed to look out for the best interests of the child, not the best interest of the father,” Tipton continued. “I thought once I got out of the abusive relationship everything would be fine. Instead, my abuser is continuing his abuse of me and my daughter with the help of the court.”

Over the course of their on and off 8 year relationship Hensberger was arrested three times for domestic violence and once for child abuse. Since their separation in 2005, Hensberger has been arrested twice for DWI, including once while the daughter was in the car.

Although the court has ordered Hensberger into alcohol treatment and ordered “absolute sobriety” when having visitation, the daughter claims he continues to drink to excess when she is visiting. The father told the court he had stopped drinking completely. The mother recently had a private investigator follow the father, who found that the father drank heavily on a night he was scheduled to have visitation. In court today the father admitted to his continued drinking; nonetheless the judge still sentenced the mother to jail.

 

Clearly this judge marches to the beat of a different drummer, or is it $$?  One wonders…

Hensberger achieved his local 15 minutes of fame in Oconto in March of this year, when he forced his daughter to enter 3 different fishing tournaments using the same fish so that he could collect the money – a story covered widely by local news. While the local media angle related to his transportation of fish against DNR regulations, Ms. Tipton’s concerns were for the well-being of her daughter, who was being taught to lie, cheat and steal by her father. Since this incident, the daughter’s relationship with the father has deteriorated, Tipton claims.

Additionally, the father’s employment is irregular, his house is in foreclosure and he currently resides with his mother. The daughter claims she is forced to sleep on the floor in the living room or in the unfinished basement since there is no bed or private space for her in the small 2 bedroom house.

“Sadly, this case typifies the problems we are seeing in Family Courts nationwide,” says Irene Weiser, executive director of StopFamilyViolence. org. “Family court judges are failing to recognize signs of abuse, and are placing children in harms way. {{I DISAGREE.  THEY SEE IT, BUT CHOOSE TO IGNORE IT.  The KEY TO THIS PROBLEM IS WHAT ARE THESE JUDGES PAYING GREATER HEED TO THAN THEIR JUDICIAL MANDATE HERE?}}  Even worse, instead of investigating the abuse allegations, they accuse the parent making the allegations of being vindictive and punish them for taking actions to protect their children. Often judges seem more concerned with maintaining the child’s relationship with the father than ensuring the child’s safety.”

 

Apparently this mother is now out of jail, and her daughter is back in a different kind of jail sentence, and we will just have to figure out how to grow up around all this.  And the reporters will continue wondering why we have so much rape, violence, and substance abuse, let alone, mental health problems in our country.  Gee, let’s take a wild, educated, guess…

Again, folks, this is not anomaly, some aberration, some weird exception in upstate (or wherever) Midwestern Dairy State (?) .  No, this is the pattern, this is the intent, and this is the practice in the family courts.  You are watching it.  Watch your headlines….

At the risk of hammering in this point of HOW it happens, and why (i.e., pointing to probable cause, not just effects), here’s an excerpt from the NAFCJ.net website as to this practice. 

Further down on this link the “Center for Policy Research” group is mentioned.  Check it out — it’s a key player, and sets a pattern for similar groups…

Meanwhile, I am saying my prayers for the Tipton family (and mine).

Child Support role is often a key factor.  Don’t know if it was this time, but t ypically it is.  A broke Mom can’t stick up so well for her rights. 

ANYTHING below this line is a quote from that NAFCJ site, though not so formatted, which ends my post today. 

One reason I understand this pattern to make sense is watching the pattern of abuse, individually, between the family of origin and my ex, and the role of finances, etc., develop over the years, and a progression to the careful vocabulary / jargon used to justify it. 

There is most definitely a system to the chaos. In fact, chaos is the desired status, from what I can see.  (See also Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine,” referring to continental lockdown, etc.)  When people, or a nation, is in shock, it is vulnerable to dictatorship.  That’s why we must FIGHT LIKE HELL for Constitutional rights for all citizens:  male/female, young or old.  This is a language issue, and then practicing what the Constitution says, eliminating something else in one’s life, and forcing legislators, judges, attorneys, and lawyers to practice what they swore an oath to.  It requires checking public records and trying to stop kickbacks, racketeering, double-dipping, and so forth.  This is the price of freedom — vigilance.  And yes, it matters, if it’s not your immediate neighbor!

—————————————————————————

Read about Meyer Elkin’s  role in the AFCC is discussed  toward the bottom of their site  AFCC: History page  .  
Completely omitted from this AFCC history is the very relevant fact that Meyer Elkin also co-founded in 1985, the leading fathers rights group – Children’s Rights Council.  Study these people and their site carefully because it is the “blueprint” of how the courts are organized to rig cases for their paid-up allies.  Nobody has to slip an envelope full of cash into the pocket of a co-conspirators to rig court cases for these people.  It is all done for them by the government.  They get their bribes paid for them !

The  AFCC never mentions the multiple cross-affiliations between AFCC officials and the fathers rights group including Children’s Rights Council (CRC), founded by David Levy  in 1985, along with several other key AFCC people.  While this vital fact is no where to be found on any of their recent literature, it did appear in the early (pre-Interent) CRC hardcopy newsletters,  which NAFCJ possesses, and uses to discredit this group and the judges who collude with them.  Also in these older CRC newsletters was discussion of grants they received from HHS and the people who worked with them on those grants – people like incest promoters Richard Gardner and Warren Farrell.  CRC allies were put into high-level HHS-ACF position such David Gray Ross, as Commission for Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) -starting in 1993 through approx 1999..  Ross was a Maryland Judge, who people who knew him say was a dead-beat dad himself.  He spent his time as OCSE commissioner instituting regulations, programs and policies favorable to fathers and CRC.  He essentially set up OCSE to be a fathers rights child support avoidance and custody switching agency.  This perversion of  OCSE’s  agency’s original legislative mission continues to-date.  This is the reason why so many custodial mothers can’t collect on their child support arrears, while non-custodial mothers are hounded incessantly and even jailed for support obligations assessed beyond standard guide-lines and beyond their ability to pay.   Other evidence taken from HHS Inspector General Web site reveals even worse corruption at HHS-ACF/OCSE.

The AFCC claims their focus is on training judges, custody evaluators and mediators about custody and divorce issues. But in reality they are a father focused organization and promoting alienation theories to explain away family violence by men. In reality they act as a “clearinghouse” for organized case rigging.  They hold conferences about parental alienation but never mention the many professional experts who have condemned it as harmful to children or the link to incest promoter Richard Gardner.  Their  scheme involves “recruiting” male litigants through fathers groups and federal HHS programs managed by the local child support agencies for program “services” which are ostensibly for helping non-custodial fathers get their visitation rights so they would have less incentive to default on child support obligations. 

{{COMMENT: This has absolutely been my experience, and the Center for Policy Research link, and many others, tend to verify it.  I pressed for child support, my kids were STOLEN, and this was rubberstamped.  Have barely seen them for dust since….}}

Instead the fathers get deals to have their support obligations closed and sent to a program paid attorney to litigant ["litigate"] for custody.  The judge hearing these cases proves ["provides"?] payments to the court-colluding fathers attorney and other supposedly “neutral” court evaluators.   None of this is disclosed to the targeted female litigant who sometimes is also ordered to pay the fees of these court professionals (e.g. illegal double billing).. 

The father is encouraged to file repeated motions (usually on frivolous claims of visitation denial or alienation) so the co-conspiring court professionals can get a steady stream of government payments.  {{GOT THAT??}} It appears the judge handling these cases gets a kickback from those being paid (with his approval) based on a few exposed examples.  This is what keeps their litigation game going and going.  They label it high-conflict bitter custody litigation to hide their own fraud.  The blame the mother for everything and keep her away from her children so she will be desperate to go back to court and get a chance to convince them of the truth (which of course they already know, and are exploiting perversely against her).

Basic Judicial ethics prohibits judges from belonging to organizations with people who appear before them in the court cases.  However, this doesn’t stop the crooked  AFCC affiliated judges from appointing Guardian at Litem (child’s attorneys) or court psychological evaluators who are AFCC members to the same cases which the AFCC member judge is handling.  Also the AFCC conducts joint conferences with the CRC – fathers rights group – usually on the subject of Parental Alienation – which they all know has been discredited as being not a valid method for use in court evaluations.

{{NOTE:  Like other organizations (me talking, again), AFCC may have some fine members.  I know some.  However, like our educational system, this system’s history and intent of the organization stands, and I stand by the above summary of it.}}

Other people on AFCC’s Board of Directors are many people closely associated with the Children’s Rights Council.  Their  favorite researcher  –  Sanford L. Braver, Ph.D. — was a recipient of a $10M federal grant.  Braver,  found, astoundingly, as a result of his study that after divorce, women do as well financially as men!   Bradford and many other purported “neutral” expert evaluators all work in concert behind the scenes to issue rubber-stamp anti-woman, pro-abusive father evaluations for the primary intent of deliberately covering up for abusive fathers (as a protection racket fueled by federal program graft).  

{{YOU WANT TO HELP KIDS?  TRACK THEM THAR FUNDS AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT….}}

Left from previous news release above…
StopFamilyViolence. org is a national activist organization that works to ensure safety, justice, accountability and healing for victims of family violence. Irene Weiser coordinates the Family Court Reform Coalition, a coalition of advocates, professionals and organizations formed in response to the national crisis in the custody court system, where all too often, judge’s order children to live with abusers and punish, silence, or jail the parent who tries to protect the children from harm.

Irene Weiser
Executive Director
StopFamilyViolence.org
331 W. 57th St #518
New York, NY 10019
iw@stopfamilyviolence.org 

OK, my commentary again.  See next post (11-17-09) for next installment in this fiasco (or, business as usual, depending on one’s perspective)….

This mother eventually DID go to jail for failing to force her underaged daughter to allow her father to force himself on her, drive drunk, and other forms of child abuse.  What a few judges with an agenda can do in a system that allows this . . . .  We were pissed off, appropriately.  I’m tired of that!  This mother was sentenced to jail, in 30-day stints, until her girl went back for more of the same (as I heard it). 

When the girl caved in, her mother was released.  This story is still unfolding. 

USA, folks, this is not Guantanamo, this is motherhood, USA.  And she wasn’t even a single parent, this time.  How’d you like to marry into that situation? 

Unjustice and abuse affects EVERYONE….

It affects the next generation, assuming they live that long. 

Over the past decade or so, researchers at McGill University in Montreal, led by Michael Meaney, have shown that affectionate mothering alters the expression of genes in animals, allowing them to dampen their physiological response to stress. These biological buffers are then passed on to the next generation: rodents and nonhuman primates biologically primed to handle stress tend to be more nurturing to their own offspring, Dr. Meaney and other researchers have found.

Now, for the first time, they have direct evidence that the same system is at work in humans. In a study of people who committed suicide published Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers in Montreal report that people who were abused or neglected as children showed genetic alterations that likely made them more biologically sensitive to stress.

[After Abuse, Changes in the Brain by BENEDICT CAREY

StopFamilyViolence.org, Feb. 23, 2009]

 

Yesterday, being off-line (not including a miniature and slow cell phone, without a keyboard), I reviewed some local newsprint.  In fact, lack of access to the internet has caused a variety of “bad hair” days, and some dashed off, ill-formatted posts.  I became a Mac fan, glad to learn how this works, and a real convert.  Then it went MIA, and it’s back to figuring out strange computers display/paste, etc. vagaries, on the fly.  Moroever today, as far as hair is concerned, for me it’s a bad hair day (literally) as well.  Consider yourself forewarned. 

Domestic violence (of which sexual assault by any family member would be part of, though not the case here) and/or child abuse are definitely crimes that involve enablers, standers-by, and those who fail to report.  As we know.  The Richmond gangrape shocked everyone, and shock was appropriate, however, what indeed are our illusions about the public school system to start with? 

While it’s appropriate to express shock at the number of passers-by that allowed this young lady to be gangraped after a homecoming dance, few articles have mentioned that she had been drinking underage, too.  While that’s NO excuse, I feel this article handled it sensitively enough.

I haven’t posted for some days.  While there’s no shortage of topics, I looked forward to posting this article, if no other.  Someone needs to say it.  And, seeing as I tend to ramrod religion from time to time, and may in a few minutes here, I was glad to see this Rev. at least brought up the topic of, what was this 15 year old doing drinking?  What was that context?  No, that’s no excuse — she didn’t provoke this.  However, it was an element of the vulnerability here, and deserves some press.

Perspective: Alcohol abuse at heart of Richmond rape case

Rev. Alvin C. Bernstine
Guest Commentary

Posted: 11/15/2009 12:01:00 AM PST

Please know that I do not mean to minimize the crime nor suggest that the victim’s inability to physically repel her assailants makes the crime less horrifying. I do, however, believe that more attention must given to the fact that a contributing factor to this horrifying crime was the abuse of alcohol, and possibly other substances.

It takes but a few moments of passion — and a woman  — for a man to start a child. 

Between funding of abstinence education, healthy marriage initiatives, fatherhood initiatives, a “fantastic” public school system (USA), trailing the industrialized world in several core topics, like reading and math, and rampant crime inside and outside the schools; between initiatives preventing parents from knowing whether or not a teen daughter has gone to have an abortion on school time (Google “Pacific Justice Institute”), and so forth — PERHAPS with all these, plus federal funding womb to tomb, more studies and evaluations of those studies, and of course the “help” of the child support system in setting reasonable and consistent standards in assigning — and collecting the child support to relieve the welfare load (supposedly) — and of course with more, and more prominent active fathering courts replacing the rule of law and common sense –

we might find a few good men with moral integrity and empathy for the welfare of their offspring.

Actually, from what I can see, the idea is with ENOUGH props, such men can be made — or bribed — to shape up, and care about their offspring. 

This is among the many causes our debt-ridden country has decided to espouse. 

As a mother, I didn’t feel it necessary to bribe and/or threaten my children to excel at their studies (which they did), and I am puzzled why this approach is thought to be so important to make sense as applied to grown young (or older) men in order to step up to the fatherhood plate.   

So . . . re :
Jackson County Pioneers Missouri Move to Fathering Courts
(below)

I add my sarcastic italicized comments so the text doesn’t blithely slip down reader’s gullets and a  warm fuzzy feeling about the nobility of this enterprise get assimilated into the thinking system.  This is a first-response post.  

Then again, what you assimilate is your choice.  When you read, remember that every Court Comissioner, Defense prosecutor, and public prosecutor mentioned is, I would think, on public dole also.  Welcome to the OK Corrale..  Everyone feels better after a few sessions in there.

This post is based on an emotional gut reaction to the concept.  Perhaps my “reasoning” as such is fuzzy, but I don’t see how it could be much fuzzier and emotionally based than what I’m commenting on.  Judge for yourself.  Please! – - -these are government-supported policies (and therefore $$), so keep it real!

http://www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-story-daddy-do-over-110609,0,5997057.story
 
Jackson County Pioneers Missouri Move to Fathering Courts
John Holt, edited by Jason Vaughn
November 6, 2009
 
KANSAS CITY, MO – Kevin Gainey was on top of the world. A good job as a bail bondsman, a lake home, and custody of his young son following his divorce.

{{FUNNY, I thought there was gender bias against men in family courts.  That’d be an interesting  case to look up. . . . Maybe  Mom must have abused substances, abandoned children, been a slut and was off witha nother man, or simply a stay at home Mom who was financially outclassed somehow.   Maybe she was a working Mom and he was a stayathome father?   Or, maybe she just gave them to him, not being financially independent and called that a good deal.  Or perhaps she was not emotionally connected to her son.  There are a thousand reasons this father, not mother, may have gotten custody of his son after a divorce, all of which might be relevant to the story, and shed a different light on the situations, and the wisdom — or lack of it — of whichever judge decided to allocate custody of his son to a Dad.  Boys should be with fathers {{no matter the character…}} was maybe the thinking, I guess.  H OW OLD was the son?  Who had been previous caretaker?  Was his former Mom a stay at home Mom?  Was the divorce contested or amicable?  What was that background story???}}

But bad habits caught up with him, his son moved back with his mom, and Gainey lost his job.

{{“bad habits caught up with him.”  Yeah, let’s gloss over that aspect. 

Poor fellow, couldn’t run fast enough.  Was it meth, crack, heroin, alcohol, pornography, — WHAT bad habits.  No matter, poor dear, he couldn’t outrun himself..

Also, I note, “moved BACK with his Mom,” meaning, she had custody, then lost it.  Maybe not.  But if so, Gee, sound familiar, folks? — except the actually getting to move back with Mom part…}}

“Wasn’t always accountable for my actions,” Gainey now says. “A lot of it had to do with my substance abuse problem.”

{{So what did the rest of it have to do with??}}

{{Externalizes the problem –  I am so familiar with this language pattern!  Not his fault, still..}}

{{Notice he didn’t say:  I wasn’t always accountable, I abused substances (and which one[s])..and “I hurt my son” }}with what ramifications…was it endangering his son most likely?  What was he doing to support his “bad habits” and “substance abuse” problem that caused a radical custody switch?)

With no money, doing odd jobs, and a sobriety issue {{SO it was alcohol…}}, Gainey fell behind in his child support, and wound up facing criminal charges.

{{Again poor dear, he was drinking, making holding a job difficult– apparently AFTER he lost custody of his son, as child support was involved.  I say apparently, because I don’t know for sure, but it seems likely…}}

 Despite that, prosecutors deemed him a good candidate for a diversion program that could give Gainey a fresh start and keep him out of prison: fathering court.

{{FORMULA:  State & Court order child support.  Child support not paid.  This is contempt of a law, and a quasi-criminal situation that can land a parent in jail, the purpose of which is to communicate that child support is a serious issue and to be paid.  However, there’s a way to dilute that message that child support IS for children, IS important, and that neglecting it IS negligence, when the potential to pay exists (i.e., stop drinking, and instead work, or at least seek work….  get help yourself…)

Enter — voila! —

{{FATHERING COURT, LAUNCHED 1998}}

((Somehow, I sense as systemic setup — do you?))  ((My blog talks about the Father’s Resolutions passed in 1998 & 1999 in US Congress, and posts some links and excerpts of the horror that XX% of African American children are sleeping in homes wi thout their fathers in them nationwide, and how Congress can stop th is travesty….

Note:  The 15 yr old girl gangraped, with passers by, in Richmond, CA recently had a father in the home.  He just wasn’t at the door leaving the dance to get her.  The victim, and it’s STILL no excuse, but she was 15 and inhaled a good deal of alcohol first.  She had a father.  Must have been a statistical anomaly.  Meanwhile, in another state here, to protect young sons (like the one exposed to substance abuse, above) and the young daughters (like the one whose  currently devastated Dad, I’m sure, did NOT show up needy and underemployed in a fathering court, apparently) we need MORE, not LESS< “therapeutic jurisprudence.” 

In fact, let’s actually just SKIP the jurisprudence part (except for the labels on the door) and go straight to therapy, just CALLING it “court.” 

Gag me with a spoon.. . .Or show me the up and coming “mothering” courts.  No one gives us that rope, that I’ve seen!   

It will not change the wheels of the institutions — we still need more fathering intervention nationwide, and grants to fund them, and to alter the philosophical basis of law to accommodate a “required outcome” of more father-contact, and to bribe, cajole, coach, and help men  to understand they must actually help FEED those they BREED. 

Launched in 1998, Jackson County’s fathering court is modeled after its drug court: parents, most often dads  {{Well, THAT”s a shocker….}}, get help meeting the challenges that may be holding them back through an initial screening. Regular follow-up court appearances are designed to keep them on track.

“I think that’s the role of fathering court. To identify the barriers that are preventing payment of support, and then to direct them to the services that resolve those issues,” says Family Court Commissioner Patrick Campbell, himself a father of two.

Commissioner Campbell presides over the court which meets weekly in Division 43.

{{Let me get this straight:  He presides over this court, presumably making decisions and signing court orders affecting men, women, and their mutual children, and THINKS he understands its purpose?  Does this Commissioner have a law degree in any state?}}

{{Are there any actual rules of court which apply in this situation?  By the way, people have a right to be heard by a judge, not a commissioner, if they choose, or so I heard.  I suppose that’s not highly publicized over there…}}

On a recent morning it was a crowded docket, as Commissioner Campbell greeted men who must demonstrate that they are making progress, make some kind of regular payment toward child support, and attend a 12 week parenting class.

{{Yes, there’s no problem on earth that a good parenting class can’t solve.  }}

“Congratulations”, Campbell tells one dad. “I told you when you graduated and got a job I was going to raise you up a little bit. So I’m going to raise each of them to 150 a month.”

To another dad, the commissioner urges contact with his kids: **”These three kids have one dad and you’re it,” he tells the man, who admits he hasn’t seen his children much.

**I am a mother.  I am having to fight pretty damn hard for contact with my kids, and there’s not one court commissioner, court-appointed attorney, mediator, judge or any one else assisting me.  But because I wasn’t abusing substances and in trouble with the law, there were no “services” offered to help.  In fact, when I went seeking them — after child-stealing on an overnight– they weren’t found.  Period.  If anything, these courts were resisting.  I didn’t understand this fully til, again, I looked up the “Access Visitation” grants system and “REQUIRED OUTCOME” for grant recipients.  You can research this, too — my blog, others, or the internet.  THAT’s what this is about.  NOT the kids…

To other men he’s a cheerleader, a task master, a coach, urging some to get something as simple as an email address so they can receive job listings sent to them by the program.

“You try to make a quick decision as to whether this is a time to encourage them or is this a time to push ‘em where they’re not comfortable,” Campbell says later.

{{I am so sorry to find that the public servants in this country feel the need to parent parents, and have forgotten their assigned duties and oaths of office (for th ose who are also attorneys).  The President of the USA had to swear an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution.  This includes due process, and laws.  What’s up with this crowd?  ???}}

A prosecutor and defense attorney stand at the bench with each of the dads, but unlike other settings, they appear more like a team, working with, rather than against each other in a court where there is no court reporter, and nothing is on the record.

{{WOW.  That’s wonderfully reassuring that all decisions will be ethical, fair, not subject to any forms of bribery or kickback, and protect the interests of the children involved, and the rest of the society not to have to pick up the tab….}}

“They see that we’re all trying to help them get to where they need to be,” says prosecutor Rebecca Leavett, who calls fathering court her favorite docket. “And I think they get more relaxed and trust us, they open up to us more about the issues that are actually going on in their lives.”

{{Translation:  some of them can be disarmingly open — when there’s money at stake.  I am so glad that the prosecutor and the defense attorneys — in an adversarial system designed for the truth to come out, through due process, and fair judgments be made — are in truth not even PRETENDING to do “bad cop, good cop,” but admitting that it’s all a show.  . . . . . .   }}

{{I”m so glad that these hardened attorneys get to have some moments of warm fuzzy feelings of do-goodism.  Perhaps the single mothers (if applicable) and fatherless children can take that warm fuzzy feeling and serve it up hot for dinner, or hug it as a pillow on a cold night.  Perhaps th ose attorneys might want to empathize with those not actually present in court, in their warm fuzziness on the law…and accountability…. AA for effort, eh??  }}

Her counterpart agrees.

“This isn’t a time for secrets, this isn’t a time for somebody to come up and say ‘whoa that’s attorney-client privilege, I want to keep this between me and my attorney,” says Gaurika Anand, a public defender who works with most of the dads.

Along with court transcripts, adversarial process designed to elicit truth, we now also want to do away with attorney-client privilege.  Gee, I wonder what ELSE is on the docket here??

Are the sons and daughters of these child-support-deprived kids going to grow up realizing, as their Dads now have, that it’s not actual performance, but just a public effort, that actually counts in life?  We can’t expect real standards based on real needs, after all…. 

I say this as a teacher, most of my adult professional life.  I know that failing to make standards clear, and then get a consensus to excell at reaching them – accomplishment and stretching those standards upwards by effort (not bribery…) produces the warm fuzzy feelings.  Not cheating them by constantly reducing the bottom line…}}

This year, Missouri lawmakers saw the eleven year old Jackson County court as a good model, and approved the concept statewide. So far several circuit courts have expressed interest, but there’s little money for launching new fathering courts. A state court spokesman says it’s expected the concept will eventually spread when the state’s economy improves.

Gainey is just happy he had the concept to benefit from in Jackson County. Initially reluctant to attend the parenting classes, he eventually did, and is grateful for the opportunity. He’s slowly whittling down his $17,000 back child support bill, has attended rehab, and says he’s now sober and working toward a better life.

When Gainey and other dads graduate, the criminal non-support charges are gone, so long as they continue to work to pay down their child support debt.

“There’s no way I could disrespect the opportunity family court’s given me,” he says. “This is gonna’ happen.”

That’s what Commissioner Campbell wants to hear from more of his participating dads.

“In this court you actually see people make changes.” he says. “I would never tell you it would be all of those making changes, but you see a lot of people make primary fundamental changes in their life. And that’s a very encouraging thing to see.”

__._,_.___

When you mix this scenario in with domestic violence, just know that economic abuse is a common factor.  While I’m VERY jaundiced, there’s a reason –  my personal experience, which is not unique, as a mother, watching the impact of sporadic child support payments, the NONresponse of the system to do anything about it when I worked and invested diligent time to get them to (and involved others).  When the children lived with me, it stalled, delayed, obstructed, and gave me double-talk answers to direct questions.    This affected my children, and my relationship with them.

The second the custody switch happened, this same system that would NOT move for a single mother, went aggressively to bat for a father who’d just responded to my attempts to collect by snatching the kids! 

This will all come out in the wash eventually.  Warm fuzzies (I don’t share them, in this matter) in one place don’t compensate for hungry children elsewhere.

For those new to these posts — the OCSE (That’s federal Office of Child Support Enforcement) are administering the grants to the states for increasing noncustodial parent (translation:  FATHERS) involvement with their kids through mandated mediation, parenting plans, and other issues designed to –    I hate to keep repeating this truth, but it’s the truth– diverting the evidence and fact-finding process from OUTSIDE The courtroom (and off the record — see this above case!) — to court paraprofessionals whose BUSINESS is apparently custody-switching, titles to the contrary….

How far away is the Gulag Archipelago from this Designer Family Concept?

Not too far, from what I can see.

Gag me with a spoon…..

For further reference on this topic.

http://www.NAFCJ.net. 

For more on Kansas, Google (or search my post also)   Claudine Dombrowski, Oletha Faust-Goudeau (and etc.).  Kansas thought ANOTHER fatherhood initiative was needed recently.  Guess they forgot about all the other programs racing through the courts, governments, county jails, chidl support agencies, faith-based nonprofit organizations, and university advanced social sciences programs, and — did I miss a venue?  No matter, fatherhood initiatives wi’ll turn up there sooner or later.  Just you wait…

LOOK:  If it’s a court, let it be a court.  If it’s therapy, let it be therapy.  Tell the truth on the label outside the door.  Also tell all the mothers involved what’s being done, out of their vision, hearing, and awareness, with the Dads of their children.  So they can, like me, put their two bits in.

Failure to call things what they are in my book is simply called lying.  No wonder confusion is rampant and mental health professionals are swamped, and stressed out with clients. 

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  In order to put SOME kind of order to thoughts, it’s necessary to have a somewhat standard point of reference for the words used to describe them.

What I read about here — that’s not court, that’s a farce of a court process.  Everyone might as well go laughing to their various banks, those that have them, while the single mothers, scourge of our nation, go find a 3rd job, and then get criticized openly in family court for their “relationship” with the latchkey kids.

Some of these Dads had legitimate problems.  How many of them were screened for prior domestic violence and use of the child support system to apply pressure on the  mothers of their kids?  If so, why do they get the kid glove, and the families the backside of the hand?

I advise people to totally avoid the child support system, if at all possible.  I do not think it’s redeemable at this piont.  Too large, too much power, and too many people are dying when people get pissed off at its proclamations.  the office shooting in Orlando, FL had a child support debt element, for those who noticed.  The shooting (one died) took place in an office, but it was a Dad, with history of controlling and abuse, and a child support debt of over $11,000.   

Was it a fair ruling?  Quite possibly that system is adding to the stress factors.

I was within range of not needing child support, but I couldn’t get the protection to my own work life and relationships to make it all the way home.  Somehow, that doesn’t seem (in retrospect), “accidental” at all.  Strong, independent, law-abiding single mothers upset the  machinery here, and it seems courts like these, and other programs, are intent on doing away with us, and our connection with our kids.  We may maintain it, but it will cost us — whether through supervised visitation, or thousands in lawyers in the family law system; once entered — exit is difficult.

If these comments are helpful (or your gut reaction to them is like mine to the article), please feel free to comment on-line.

Have a nice day.

This is a quick post, and on again reflecting on the He vs. She wars, which are not possible to win, let alone ridiculous in premise, here’s a little book:

  METAPHORS WE LIVE BY

Is it true that all of us, not just poets, speak in metaphors, whether we realize it or not? Is it perhaps even true that we live by metaphors? In Metaphors We Live By George Lakoff, a linguist, and Mark Johnson, a philosopher, suggest that metaphors not only make our thoughts more vivid and interesting but that they actually structure our perceptions and understanding. Thinking of marriage as a “contract agreement,” for example, leads to one set of expectations, while thinking of it as “team play,” “a negotiated settlement,” “Russian roulette,” “an indissoluble merger,” or “a religious sacrament” will carry different sets of expectations. When a government thinks of its enemies as “turkeys or “clowns” it does not take them as serious threats, but if the are “pawns” in the hands of the communists, they are taken seriously indeed. Metaphors We Live By has led many readers to a new recognition of how profoundly metaphors not only shape our view of life in the present but set up the expectations that determine what life well be for us in the future. (from introduction in The Conscious Reader)

“Metaphors We Live By” by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

. . .

It is important to see that we don’t just talk about arguments in terms of war. We can actually win or lose arguments. We see the person we are arguing with as an opponent. We attack his positions and we defend our own. We gain and lose ground. We plan and use strategies. If we find a position indefensible, we can abandon it and take a new line of attack. Many of the things we do in arguing are partially structured by the concept of war. Though there is no physical battle, there is a verbal battle, and the structure of an argument–attack, defense, counter-attack, etc.—reflects this. It is in this sense that the ARGUMENT IS WAR metaphor is one that we live by in this culture; its structures the actions we perform in arguing. Try to imagine a culture where arguments are not viewed in terms of war, where no one wins or loses, where there is no sense of attacking or defending, gaining or losing ground. Imagine a culture where an argument is viewed as a dance, the participants are seen as performers, and the goal is to perform in a balanced and aesthetically pleasing way. In such a culture, people would view arguments differently, experience them differently, carry them out differently, and talk about them differently. But we would probably not view them as arguing at all: they would simply be doing something different. It would seem strange even to call what they were doing “arguing.” In perhaps the most neutral way of describing this difference between their culture and ours would be to say that we have a discourse form structured in terms of battle and they have one structured in terms of dance. This is an example of what it means for a metaphorical concept, namely, ARGUMENT IS WAR, to structure (at least in part) what we do and how we understand what we are doing when we argue. The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.. It is not that arguments are a subspecies of war. Arguments and wars are different kinds of things–verbal discourse and armed conflict–and the actions performed are different kinds of actions. But ARGUMENT is partially structured, understood, performed, and talked about in terms of WAR. The concept is metaphorically structured, the activity is metaphorically structured, and, consequently, the language is metaphorically structured.

At the back of this (1980 publ.) book is a section that talks about the CONDUIT method of communication — and cites how this leads to untold evils.  At best, communication is negotiated, with respect for differences, until some basic consensus is reached.

However, there are limits to this, and there ARE people who have no intention of doing so.  In such cases, then the dialogue becomes fruitless, if not dangerous.  In pursuing Life, Liberty and Happiness – - – an individual should be allowed to set some LIMIT on how long to continue in fruitless or possibly dangerous negotiations. 

The timeframe within family law is generally 18 years from the birth of the  youngest child, unless you get lucky, wise, rich, or out of there by some other means, depriving untold professionals of a captive audience.  No matter, there are more where the first batch came from . . . .

Now, to understand what’s going on in the family law venue, it’s necessary to ADMIT that there are religious groups — and I include people who religiously cling to hating the opposite sex, whether or not they self-classify as agnostic, atheist, or whatnot — that’s a theology, that’s an -ism, and that’s a worldview that only ONE worldview is acceptable — these groups perceive giving women rights, per se, is an “attack’ on their gender. 

Look — when can we return, USA, to the “metaphor” that is contained in our Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence.  Given those, then the main struggles are to recognize people that don’t look like “us” to be actually acknowledged as human beings, in these unalienable rights.  These CIVIL rights. 

We are raising a nation of bigots.  It’s frightening.  The main point is not statistics, but due process, and uncorrupt judges, mediators, and attorneys.  As to the family law venue, I’m real jaundiced these days, and will bite my tongue, at least for today, other than to assert that it’s become two things:

1.  Therapeutic Jurisprudence.  Guess what?  Law and Therapy are two SEPARATE fields, and I do believe the former one holds more sanity,a nd possibly precision, than the latter, which presumes a subject/object relationship I happen to think conflicts with the entire premise of having a court to start with.  If it’s law, do law.  If it’s therapy, then count me out — I’ll find a qualified therapist when that’s  the priority, IF it becomes one, but the thing that appears to create the need for it is this circus, to start with!

2.  Business for Social Scientists, turning our nation more and more into a complete bureaucracy, where actual productive, creative activity is draining out of the workplace, as if the taxes supportinga ll this weren’t enough drain to start with.  Public SERVANTS???  Then let them actually read the case files, obey the rules of court, stop ignoring evidence, and cease ruling on hearsay and personal opinion.  These are ETHICAL matters.

Tolerance, please for formatting (can’t access regular computer).  Not my best post, but I borrow from better writers above and below:

And here’s an article:

“Men’s Rights” Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective“

“They’re changing custody rights and domestic violence laws. Posted: Thursday, November 5, 2009 7:45am”

By Kathryn Joyce

[Kathryn Joyce is a freelance writer based in New York City and the author of Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement]

This article is fairly long, mentions so many players in this venue, and a reader who actually looked up several of them would be better informed on the field.  I have blogged on some of the individuals or items in here already.

My comments, for now:  Public, WAKE UP!  !!!  The time is now. . . .   And I do not think the solution is to pick a side, but to look at what has been forgotten in this process.  There are plenty of groups who would be  just fine for all men vs. women war (and ideology) to keep on going — business is good, after all, in these circles, and unlike other sectors of the economy, there is no lack of clients in the family law venue, especially when fights over custody are bitter.

Is it possible to have a non-polarized view of these events, without projecting one’s own woes and bad experiences onto the entire field?  I know, I’m  guilty of doing this during my blog.  On the other hand, how many blogs do you know that actually point to the federal funding of these dramas? 

The woman who wrote this has authored a book on Christian Patriarchy.  I say that Christian and Patriarchy are mutually exclusive.  WIthout COMPLETELY revealing my identity (let’s hope), and for where I’m coming from, see either righthand column, or one of my earliest blogs which says this:

If you can bear with my theology, or allow some poetic license here, for rthe sake of argument:  The “Jesus Christ” I read (that’s past tense, present tense) about in the Bible – which I’ve been doing for decades, complete with the intellectual background, the degrees, a good deal of Greek, and trying to live the stuff, the professional multicultural variety (yada, yada, yada),  – - and whether or not one considers the accounts reliable, but as written — the guy confronted the religiosity, hypocrisy, failure to care for — or for that matter, basically notice — the poor, the sick, the weak  and basic oppression of his own religion –  and got crucified for it. 

I’ve had “Christian Patriarchy” in my face, on top of me, and calling me  names, and I have stared straight into the angry face of a personality that didn’t see a PERSON, but a GENDER, and, as such, an ENEMY.  I have been called Satan, and Eve, straight-out, and the dude had weapons, too, and had this hitting habit, too.  I have had to go around and try to counter some of the dudes that were egging him on to “win” and to “dominate” ( that’s brave, dominating a pregnant woman whose car, bank account, and etc. you’d already commandeered for the cause.  How manly ….).  I believe I have as much a right to criticize and address this as the next person, while still acknowledging that feminISM isn’t a reliable theology either.  However, I do believe it began as a  reaction to injustice based on gender, and that injustice based on gender DOES have a religious basis, no matter what the color or jargon — Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic.  Misogyny is misogyny, as is basic narcissism.

It’s a sad day when the dialogue has degenerated into ISMs and IANITIES…  Talk about inane.  Father’s rights countering women’s rights, countering being assaulted in the home, underpaid and etc.  It gets down to economics sooner or later.  Add to this, for some interest, CIVIL rights, racism, and in short the US/Them mentality for defining what’s right and what’s wrong.

I would LIKE to say NO!  STOP!  Trying to answer ”who”  is wrong, is wrong.  But in a lawsuit, or legal process, the question is, WHAT is wrong.  It’s a WHAT not a WHO. 

Unfortunately, family law is set up to do the character evaluation thing, not the evidence thing (see my last post). 

Lying to get one’s way– especially bearing false witness under oath, stealing, murdering, and if you’re in a marriage, I say adultery, although most folks are, who cares?  I call those wrong.

Defrauding other individuals through the court process, which happens, is wrong.  Part of this includes lying, suppressing evidence, violating rules of court (how many of us even know them?), intimidating witnesses has GOT to be morally near the bottom, and so forth.  Extortion, like I mentioned last post.  These THINGS are wrong.

And if this sounds uncomfortably close to the 10 commandments, then let’s go with some penal codes instead.  This still leaves the same problem  also detailed in the Bible — who’s going to judge, and who’s going to enforce?  Suppose those judges are taking bribes (won’t be the first time in history, right?).   The sons of Samuel, as I recall, a top-notch prophet, were causing a ruckus sleeping with women who came to the temple.  Nothing new under the sun, for sure, in that matter. . . . . . See Alanna Krause case — two of the individuals influencing her case — as a minor daughter — were in bed together.  Fat chance she had of justice with that going on.

So, HERE is the article. I may return for paragraphing, and commenting — but it talks about key issues and players.

Like most such articles, it does NOT follow the money trail through the government grants system, and it doesn’t really show which organizations are in bed with which other ones.  However, this is informative, and I’ll slap it up here today (sorry for the analogy).  Suggest googling the individuals and organizations mentioned, then look some of them up on TAGGS.hhs.gov or usaspending.gov.  For starters.

Have a nice day!

At the end of October, National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, members of the men’s movement group RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting) gathered on the steps of Congress to lobby against what they say are the suppressed truths about domestic violence: that false allegations are rampant, that a feminist-run court system fraudulently separates innocent fathers from children, that battered women’s shelters are running a racket that funnels federal dollars to feminists, that domestic-violence laws give cover to cagey mail-order brides seeking Green Cards, and finally, that men are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives.
“It’s now reached the point,” reads a statement from RADAR, “that domestic violence laws represent the largest roll-back in Americans’ civil rights since the Jim Crow era!”
RADAR’s rhetoric may seem overblown, but lately the group and its many partners have been racking up very real accomplishments. In 2008, the organization claimed to have blocked passage of four federal domestic-violence bills, among them an expansion of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to international scope and a grant to support lawyers in pro bono domestic-violence work. Members of this coalition have gotten themselves onto drafting committees for VAWA’s 2011 reauthorization. Local groups in West Virginia and California have also had important successes, criminalizing false claims of domestic violence in custody cases, and winning rulings that women-only shelters are discriminatory.  
Groups like RADAR fall under the broader umbrella of the men’s rights movement, a loose coalition of anti-feminist groups. These men’s rights activists, or MRAs, have long been written off by domestic-violence advocates as a bombastic and fringe group of angry white men, and for good reason. Bernard Chapin, a popular men’s rights blogger, told me over e-mail that he will refer to me as “Feminist E,” since he never uses real names for feminists, who are wicked and who men “must verbally oppose … until our flesh oxidizes into dust.” In the United Kingdom, a father’s rights group scaled Buckingham Palace in superhero costumes. In Australia, they wore paramilitary uniforms and demonstrated outside the houses of female divorcees.

But lately they’ve become far more polished and savvy about advancing their views. In their early days of lobbying, “these guys would show up and have this looming body language that was very off-putting,” says Ben Atherton-Zeman, author of Voices of Men, a one-man play about domestic violence and sexual assault. “But that’s all changed. A lot of the leaders are still convicted batterers, but they’re well-organized, they speak in complete sentences, they sound much more reasonable: All we want is equal custody, for fathers not to be ignored.”

One of the respectable new faces of the movement is Glenn Sacks, a fathers’ rights columnist and radio host with 50,000 e-mail followers, and a pragmatist in a world of angry dreamers. Sacks is a former feminist and abortion-clinic defender who disavows what he calls “the not-insubstantial lunatic fringe of the fathers’ rights movement.” He recently merged his successful media group with the shared-parenting organization Fathers and Families in a bid to build a mainstream fathers’ rights organ on par with the National Organization of Women. Many of Sacks’ arguments—for a court assumption of shared parenting in the case of divorce, or against child-support rigidity in the midst of recession—can sound reasonable.
But do any of their arguments hold up? Many of the men for whom Sacks advocates are involved in extreme cases, says Joanie Dawson, a writer and domestic-violence advocate who has covered the fathers’ rights movement. The great majority of custody cases, in which shared parenting is a legitimate option, are settled or resolved privately. But of the 15 percent that go to family court—the cases that fathers’ rights groups target—at least half include alleged domestic abuse.
 
Unsurprisingly, this argument is missing from MRA discussions of custody inequality and recruitment ads, which cast all men as potentially innocent victims “just one 911 call away” from losing everything they have earned and loved. These rallying calls, and the divorce attorneys hawking men’s rights expertise on MRA sites, promising to “teach her a lesson,” serve as what Dawson sees as a powerful draw for men in the midst of painful divorces.
While MRA groups continue to expand their base of embittered fathers and ex-husbands, they’ve cleaned up their image to court more powerful allies. RADAR board member Ron Grignal, the former president of Fathers for Virginia and a former state delegate candidate, organizes the group’s Washington lobbying activities.

{{It’s spelled “Grignol” and here’s a PIPL link…and this, apparently, is what he thinks of protective orders, based on “Death by Protective Order” from the organization above.  Predictably, it wasn’t to protect herself, it was to gain a strategic advantage in divorce:  “

Protective orders can also {{But is this what they DO?}} provide cover and shift blame from spouses who may have initiated the break-up by having an affair or simply becoming bored with the marriage.

If so, where is the evidence of handwringing or hair-tearing-out on the part of judges and magistrates for the headlines that have already occurred?

BACK TO MAIN ARTICLE, K. Joyce:

In 2008, RADAR partnered with Eagle Forum for a conference at the Heritage Foundation about the threat that VAWA poses to the family.

{{This link is from 2006, and lists other organizations involved, including “ACFC” — note similar acronym to “AFCC”…}}

Grignal argues that state interpretations of VAWA are so broad they could cast couples’ money disputes as domestic violence, enabling unwarranted restraining orders that then win women’s divorce cases for them. Politicians, Grignal says, are increasingly on board with men’s rights movement concerns.
“On domestic violence, I’ve had both state and federal legislators tell me they know that this process is out of control,” says Grignal. “They’re afraid if they support [reforms] they’ll be tagged as ‘for domestic violence.’ But I’ve had Democrats on Capitol Hill tell me they agree with everything I say. A member of the Congressional Black Caucus told me that his brother can’t see his kids, and his wife threatened to throw herself down the stairs to ruin his political career.”
 
Some domestic-violence protections do seem to have unintended effects, such as mandatory-arrest policies that compel police to take someone into custody in response to any domestic-violence call—a policy that has been criticized by RADAR as well as by some domestic-violence advocates, who say it imposes an absurd equivalence between largely nonviolent family spats or insubstantial female violence and serious abuse. But groups like RADAR are criticizing the law for the wrong reasons. In fact, the effect of mandatory arrest in conflating women’s low-level violence with battery, seems very close to RADAR’s campaign for viewing women as equal domestic abusers.
One potent idea advanced by MRAs is the claim that men are equal victims of domestic violence. Mark Rosenthal, president and co-founder of RADAR, makes a very personal argument for the phenomenon. Rosenthal, who doesn’t call himself an MRA, grew up with a mother who he says terrorized the entire family and hit her husband frequently. The true impact of the violence, he says, was more than physical and eclipsed his petite mother’s ability to inflict serious injuries. Rosenthal wants to see an appreciation for women’s nonphysical abuse incorporated into domestic-violence policy. “It’s not about size,” he told an audience at a law enforcement domestic-violence training. “It’s not exclusively about physical attacks. However, it is about a pathological need to control others, and women are as prone to this as men.”
RADAR and other MRA groups base their battered men arguments largely on the research of a small group of social scientists who claim that domestic violence between couples is equally divided, just unequally reported. Most notable are the studies conducted by sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire, who has written extensively on female violence (and who Dawson saw distributing RADAR flyers at an APA conference).

Straus’ research is starting to move public opinion. A Los Angeles conference this July dedicated to discussing male victims of domestic violence, “From Ideology to Inclusion 2009: New Directions in Domestic Violence Research and Intervention,” received positive mainstream press for its “inclusive” efforts.
While some men certainly are victims of female domestic violence, advocates say the number is closer to 3 percent to 4 percent, rather than the 45 percent to 50 percent RADAR claims. Jack Straton, a Portland State University professor and member of Oregon’s Attorney General’s Sexual Assault Task Force, argues that Straus, critically, fails to distinguish between the intent and effect of violence, equating “a woman pushing a man in self-defense to a man pushing a woman down the stairs,” or a single act of female violence with years of male abuse; that Straus only interviewed one partner, when couples’ accounts of violence commonly diverge; and that he excludes from his study post-separation violence, which accounts for more than 75 percent of spouse-on-spouse violence, 93 percent of which is committed by men.
All in all, advocates say that cherry-picked studies from researchers like Straus, touted by the MRAs, amount to what Edward Gondolf, director of research for the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute, calls“bad science.” Statistics suggesting gender parity in abuse are taken out of necessary context, they say, ignoring distinctions between the equally divided “common couple violence” and the sort of escalated, continuing violence known as battery—which is 85 percent male-perpetrated—as well as the disparate injuries inflicted by men and women.
“The biggest concern, though, is not the wasted effort on a false issue,” writes Straton, but the encouragement given to batterers to consider themselves the victimized party. “Arming these men with warped statistics to fuel their already warped worldview is unethical, irresponsible, and quite simply lethal.”
  
In this, critics like Australian sociologist Michael Flood say that men’s rights movements reflect the tactics of domestic abusers themselves, minimizing existing violence, calling it mutual, and discrediting victims. MRA groups downplay national abuse rates, just as abusers downplay their personal battery; they wage campaigns dismissing most allegations as false, as abusers claim partners are lying about being hit; and they depict the violence as mutual—part of an epidemic of wife-on-husband abuse—as individual batterers rationalize their behavior by saying that the violence was reciprocal. Additionally, MRA groups’ predictions of future violence by fed-up men wronged by the family-law system seem an obvious additional correlation, with the threat of violence seemingly intended to intimidate a community, like a fearful spouse, into compliance.
MRA critics say the organizational recapitulation of abusive tactics should be no surprise, considering the wealth of movement leaders with records or accusations of violence, abuse, harassment, or failure to pay child support. Some advocates call MRA groups “the abuser’s lobby,” because of members like Jason Hutch, the Buckingham Palace fathers’ rights “Batman,” who has been estranged from three mothers of his children and was taken to court for threatening one of his ex-wives.
Contrary to RADAR’s claims, domestic-violence advocates say that not only do abuse accusations not automatically win custody cases for women; there are a rising number of custody decisions awarded to abusive fathers, as judges see wives eager to protect their children as less cooperative regarding custody. More than half the time, studies have found, wives’ accusations of domestic violence are met with counter-accusations from husbands of “Parental Alienation Syndrome”—a medically unrecognized diagnosis that suggests mothers have poisoned their children into making false accusations against their fathers.
 
In one recent case, Genia Shockome, a Russian immigrant, was fighting for custody of her two children with her ex-husband, whom she charged had beaten her so severely that she suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and who had told her she “had no right to leave” since he’d brought her to the United States. The judge in the case sided with her husband’s counter-claims of Parental Alienation Syndrome and awarded him full custody (and later sentenced Shockome to 30 days in jail while she was seven months pregnant).

When her attorney, Barry Goldstein, co-author of the forthcoming book Domestic Violence, Abuse and Custody, criticized the judge in an online article, the judge retaliated with a complaint, and Goldstein was given a five-year suspension. Goldstein says the sanction represents a chilling pressure on attorneys, who may now fear penalties for criticizing a court’s gender bias that will interfere with their duties to their clients and that could result in women deciding not to leave abusers out of fear they won’t get a fair trial.
If cases such as Genia Shockome’s are the fodder of mainstream fathers’ rights advocates like Glenn Sacks—who ridiculed her claims and loss of custody as an uncredible “cause célèbre” for feminist family-law reformers—what Sacks calls the movement’s “lunatic fringe” is more vitriolic yet.
Within the ranks of the men’s rights movement, vigilante “resisters” are regularly nominated and lionized for acts of violence perceived to be in opposition to a feminist status quo. In a few quarters of the movement, this even included George Sodini, the Pittsburgh man who opened fire on a gym full of exercising women this August, killing three and leaving behind an online diatribe journaling his sense of rejection by millions of desirable women.
Sodini’s diary was republished widely, including on the website of a popular men’s rights blogger, “Angry Harry,” who added his assessment of the case. “MRAs should also take note of the fact that there are probably many millions of men across the western world who feel similar in many ways, and one can expect to see much more destruction emanating from them in the future,” he wrote. “One of the main reasons that I decided to post this diary on this website was because the western world must wake up to the fact that it cannot continue to treat men so appallingly and get away with it.” In a phone interview, Angry Harry said, “Of course there will be more Sodinis—there will be many more,” likening him to Marc Lépine, a Canadian man who killed or wounded 28, claiming feminists had ruined his life, or Nevada father Darren Mack, who murdered his estranged wife and attempted to kill the judge in their custody battle. (Also among this number is John Muhammad, the “D.C. Beltway Sniper,” whose involvement in a Washington father’s rights group and history of abuse is described in his ex-wife Mildred’s newly-released memoir, Scared Silent.) Perhaps, Angry Harry mused, that as the ranks of online MRAs grow, “the threat” of their violence “may be enough” to bring about the changes they desire.

Glenn Sacks dismissed Angry Harry as an “idiot” without real power in the movement, and yet he cautiously defends him. “I want to be careful in wording this,” he says, “but the cataclysmic things I’m seeing done to men, it’s always my fear that one of these guys is going to do something terrible. I don’t want to say that, like, I condone it or that it’s OK, but it’s just the reality.” The movement seems eager to supply more martyrs. After Sacks wrote about a San Diego father who shot himself on the city’s courthouse steps over late child-support payments, numerous men wrote Sacks, telling him, “They’re taking everything from me, and I want to go out in a big way, and if I do, will you write about me?”

I’m often searching for a comparison to communicate the scope & severity  of the family court matters, as opposed to the lack of urgency to address it.  Seem to have found one. . . . .

Talk about a Halloween nightmare — – a high-profile engineering failure, and urgent, though disruptive, efforts to fix — although:  No Serious Injuries Caused.  Obviously the potential for multiple serious injuries was there…

CONTRAST this urgency with the “business as usual” treatment of another system so engineered that serious injuried, and too often literal deaths, occur.   Because these are more widespread, perhaps they still don’t warrant serious attention.  Read on:\

States must reform a system

that too often rewards custody to the abusive parent.**

by Kathleen Russell, San Rafael, California, published 10-14-09 in the Christian Science Monitor.

[story of one individual highlights the issue]…I’m numbering sentences for comments below.  I also just alternate colors for easier reading.   CSM policy discourages reposting whole article, reading it all is a summary of –part of — the problems with family law.  system.

In a system with so much at stake — for the litigants, and their children — for those associated with the litigants and their children in work, school, play, at home, or as relatives — and with the short, short time span in which impressionable youngsters grow up — can even ONE false assumption be made in the process of fixing it? 

In the Bay Bridge — a HUGE project — they forgot about the wind vibrations plus the vibrations from the traffic load would affect a “patch fix.”  Seems to me that vibrations when it comes to a bridge is basic engineering vocabulary. 

The FIRST sentence of this article reads:

“When a parent harms his or her own child, family courts are supposed to step in and safeguard the victim.”

Ohh??  I thought that stepping in was the province of Child Protective Services and law enforcement, since harming a child (as also a spouse, or other human being) IS a criminal act.  The concept that the family law venue is set up to handle criminal actions is a misconception.  To clarify, see www.justicewomen.org or anywhere that talks about the difference between civil and criminal venues, and family court vs. criminal prosecutions of domestic violence. 

Harming a child is domestic violence, and little to no training in this is required even to become a certified family law practitioner.  I believe I still have a link off to the side.

Association of Family & Conciliation Courts (AFCC) — see my blog — states clearly in their history page that one of their key founders was OPPOSED to the use of the “old” criminal language, and preferred newer, better terms to describe things like — child molestation or domestic violence, or things that show up as criminal acts.  I blogged on it — search here, you’ll see.

However, the CPS, the law enforcement and the family law venue most certainly DO bounce back and forth off each other, at least in this area, and listen to each other in crucial decisions, I found out (alas). 

This is a repeated refrain in the family law venue, so much so as to be characteristic.  It is just about a DEFINING quality of these courts — and no, they do NOT exist to protect children.  I believe that family law is where batterers go to hide, and was designed in part to receive them and allow them continued access.  That this also just happens to be big business, and a perpetual motion (as in, legal motions) machine, is unlikely to be an afterthough, methinks…

 None of the authorities she approached would effectively intervene to protect her daughter [1]. So in 2000, Ms. Rogers eventually felt that she had no choice but to flee with her child to protect her [2].

More than three years later, this protective mother was caught and jailed for five months, while her daughter was immediately handed over to her alleged abusers [3]. Rogers faced criminal charges for violating a court order by fleeing with her child [4]. After considering the evidence in her case, a jury of her peers completely exonerated her of all wrongdoing [5].

The very same evidence that exonerated her in the criminal court had been called “frivolous” by the family court judge and disregarded [6]. Despite her acquittal, Rogers was never granted custody of her daughter, who lives with her alleged abusers to this day [7]. She is now forced to pay a fee to visit with her daughter a few times a month in a supervised visitation facility [8].

=========

 [1], [2] — women are trained to generally go the authorized route first.  This mother did.  When it failed, her motherhood instincts kicked in (see how THOSE can help in reading about which cops — male, or female — caught, and which overlooked (male or female) Phil Garrido and the two kids he’d fathered by (kidnapped * 18-years imprisoned) Jaycee Dugard this past year.  Again, I blogged this.  A policewoman noticed something amiss in two kids; her alertness started the process saving them and their mother.

 [3] Protective mother caught and jailed. . . .   Why don’t readers just google that phrase and see what comes up.  See also Stopfamilyviolence.org.  Women have fled to other countries — sometimes getting asylum! — to protect their children from assault & battery or molestation.  The brave U.S. is not negligent to try and go fetch them back.  Google, if it’s still on-line, Sheila Riggs.  Or another, Joyce Murphy.  Or Holly Collins. 

[4].  Some states have an actual EXEMPTION for protective parents fleeing when it comes to felony child-stealing.  The catch is, it’s enforced in reverse!  This woman, being a Californian, should’ve been protected by California Penal Code 278, but obviously wasn’t.  Who didn’t protect her — law enforcement?  A judge? 

[5]  It seems (on a fast read] that this mother THEN got into a criminal charge, and as such, actually got in front of a jury.  Because she might be jailed, this was proper.  Unlike the family law, where mandatory mediation, and hearsay rules the day, an actual jury “considered the evidence in her case.”  That’s why the exonerated her.  It appears she was innocent and shouldn’t have been jailed.  NEVERTHELESS, she still DID spend 5 months in jail.  How do you think THAT affected her relationship with her daughter?

If being jailed wasn’t bad enough for an innocent mother, while she was in jail, I’m sure that knowing her daughter was now in the total custody — without her intervention, or ability to help mitigate this any more — of the alleged abusers — was worse punishment.  While California jails are overcrowded, hear tell women’s are less so.  They can be TOUGH.

[6].  Statement “6″ above, as is, might as well be the motto of the family law venue.  If you understand this, you understand enough.  Due process doesn’t count.  Being innocent — or guilty — matters not. 

[7] I have a question:  WHY didn’t custody automatically go back to her?  If she fled to protect, and the evidence said there was something to protect AGAINST (if she was exonerated, it must have, right?) then WHY is that child still living with the abuser?  Because the illegal and wrongfully punishing process of a protective mother destroyed her ability to have a child?  Or because the family courts simply couldn’t be bothered to acknowledge a ruling coming from outside its own venue?

[8]  Supervised Visitation fees.   I TOLD you this was a business model.  Someday, perhaps more people will start actually believing this. 

Look:

Protective parents not only lose custody of the children they are trying to protect, but they lose their life savings, too. Many cannot even afford a lawyer to represent their interests, but are saddled with hefty supervised visitation fees and often threatened with a loss of custody if they object to paying the bevy of court-appointed experts that the judge assigns to their case.

Hmm. . . . threatening to take your kid, and have him/her [further] hurt, seriously, if you can’t pay the court-appointed experts.  And this is NOT extortion, and NOT the Mafia??  No, they are all in here to help poor people settle their squabbles, and to protect –NOT traffick in — children.

Fees quickly add up to tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many such parents go bankrupt, making court appeals impossible. The family law “machine” operates as Big Business, and a sophisticated cottage industry has sprung up that appears to be preying on desperate parents and children who are trying to escape family violence.

The author recommends, and then talks about a “major overhaul” of the family law system.  Sister, I don’t think this is about to happen, the problems are foundational, and built  into it.  It is designed to extract cash from parents, (one side will generally be rich enough, or if not, government grants will do instead, for court-appointed attorneys, mediators, and so forth, let alone the dang judges!) and hand it over to those in “the court.”  (Think royalty).  If you’re in, you’re in, if you’re out, you’re out. 

Thus weakened, one parent will certainly have to fork over a child. a few drops more will of course be extracted, if some are left, because what protective parent does NOT want to see a child, even if under strained and artificial conditions — a lesson also for the next generation — and wouldn’t scrape together the funds to do so?  Notice — supervised visitation SUPPOSEDLY exists to protect a child from a violent parent, or one incapable of self-restraint enough to be UNsupervised.  It is typically used to punish a parent after a switch, rather than for its intended purpose.  At least, so I am coming to believe. 

Bay Bridge with thousands of daily commuters, commuters at risk (not yet dead), the fix is made.  Why?  Probably someone remembers the Loma Prieta earthquake, which DID cause deaths when this bridge collapsed.  Probably because it affects BUSINESS more than families.  I don’t know — you tell me!

Family Law Venue, with probably by now thousands of genuine casualties, including abductions, family wipeouts, jailed Moms, or Dads, and fractured relationships, lost work time (for the litigants — not the court folk) and a drain on the social services of the United States of America — and, resistance to changing BUSINESS as usual is high. 

This is a quick post, and I hope within the framework of CSM quotation guidelines.  Have a nice day!

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More information on linking.

As we near the end of yet another Domestic Violence Awareness month, let’s evaluate the costs and benefits {say, what??} of domestic violence, and Let’sGetHonest — there IS a benefit to some folks for perpetuating it, and for some of the folks perpetually stopping it.

Face it:  An asset on one person (or institution’s) balance sheet is a liability on another.  An expense on one’s is income on another’s.  A loss on one’s may show up as a profit on another’s.  That’s called “transfer of wealth” and “marketing.” 

Right now, the American people (at least) have mortgaged their conscience (and families) to others in too many categories, and hopefully by paying taxes, the experts will take care of the major problems and the rest of us can get back to the grindstones, our passions, or whatever makes our days.

Hearing about slayings related to family breakups (innumerable and geographically widespread), or gangrapes after a homecoming dance (Richmond, CA — recent) , or workplace shootings by disgruntled ex-employees (Orlando, Florida), or international parental child abductions, asylum IN the United States from abuse abroad, or asylum abroad FROM abuse in the United States, and — now — at-home military massacres of  yet-to-be-determined cause (mental health caregiver stress + fundamentalist religious protest against the war in terror — Ft. Hood, TX — 13 dead) — and so forth.  These are high costs.  

How many common values do we really share?

The question is who’s invested in maintaining it, and who really is invested in stopping it.  Once that becomes clear, then another question is who is invested in the fruitless effort to turn a sheep into a goat, or a bad apple into a good apple. Are all apples really potentially good apples, or is this line of reasoning quack science?  And how long, and how much must WHO pay WHOM in trusting that the experts experimenting on — guess which communities — have those communities’ best interests at heart. 

Institutions do what institutions are designed to do — grow, and perpetuate themselves.  And pay employees to run them, PR to promote them, and advocates to advocate for them.  Face it, domestic violence is now an institution, and with many similarities to slavery.  And I do believe it has its own carpetbaggers — one reason I started this blog, too. 

I ran across TheLoop21.com, and was immediately taken by its common sense and uncommon points of view.  Here is one of their series on Domestic Violence:

(1)   Blacks, Domestic Violence, and the price of abuse
TheLoop21.com

By Nsenga K. Burton, Ph.D.

Tue, 10/27/2009 – 07:18

Guns killed 305 Black women in 2006.

Read more of TheLoop21.com’s Red, Black and Green series on domestic violence.

Domestic violence in the African–American community must stop. It seems like an easy enough thing to say, but doing it seems like something else all together. We live in a society marked by violence. This country was founded on violent acts, many of which were against women, particularly Black women who were slaves

AND 

(2)  Second, consider whose loss == whose gain. 

now that we consider for whom DV is a literal $$$ EXPENSE, I suggest we consider, to which groups, businesses, entities, and/or individuals or professional classes of individuals DV is actually an INCOME, if not a business, a livelihood, a name, and a pretty solid cash flow, whether private or governmental. 

now here’s that article. . . .

Domestic violence in the African–American community must stop. It seems like an easy enough thing to say, but doing it seems like something else all together. We live in a society marked by violence. This country was founded on violent acts, many of which were against women, particularly Black women who were slaves. It would seem that having suffered such violence at the hands of former male and female slave owners, our cultural practices would demand that we respect and protect Black women from harm. It is truly sad, when the one thing that we can count on statistically speaking, is harm in the form of physical and emotional abuse from our intimate partners. 

According to the study “When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 2006 Homicide Data,” released by The Violence Policy Center, a national non-profit organization that conducts research on violence in the United States, 551 African American women were murdered by males in 2006. The study stated that there were 1,818 race-identified females murdered by males. While white women accounted for the largest total of those killed (1,208), African American women were killed at a rate nearly three times higher. How did most of the murders occur? Guns killed 305 of those women.

Intimate partners are literally blowing Black women away for a variety of reasons that include stress, mental illness, control, narcissism and pathology. Mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces and cousins are leaving this earth with wounded bodies and spirits and sadly enough the numbers are increasing, not decreasing. What does this mean for the black community?

It means that we have to do something to break the cycle of abuse and violence in our homes. If the majority of Black households are headed by women, what happens when those women are killed or injured? Talking about domestic violence hasn’t helped. High profile cases like those involving Chris Brown and Rihanna, Bebe Winans, Big Pun, Don Cornelius, Jennifer Hudson’s sister and Tyrese Gibson haven’t helped. Women offering testimony in church and on YouTube hasn’t helped. Men and women creating awareness campaigns during the month of October hasn’t helped. 

If you turn on the television or read a newspaper, there is a very high likelihood that a woman murdered by an intimate partner is somewhere in the content.

We know that domestic violence breaks up families. We know that children suffer emotionally, financially and spiritually with the sudden loss of a parent. We know that it leaves irreparable mental and emotional scars on women and men. But do we know the economic costs of domestic violence to the black community? Let me break it down for you.

According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, in the United States, the cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year, with $4.1 billion going towards direct medical and mental health services. 

Victims of intimate partner violence lost 8 million days of paid work because of violence committed against them by current or former husbands, boyfriends or dates. That equals 32,000 full-time jobs and almost 5.6 million days of household productivity.

According to the National Funeral Director’s Association, the average cost of a funeral in the U.S. is $7,323 thousand each year. In 2006, Black families spent over $4 million burying African American victims of domestic violence.

According to the World Health Organization, the cost of domestic violence in the United States amounts to 3.3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).

Sadly, I could go on but I’ll stop. Domestic violence is costing this country, and our community, much more than our mental, physical and spiritual health. It is costing us our economic viability and the ability to create financial freedom in our communities. How will we build wealth in our community, when so much of it is going towards costs related to domestic violence?

Appealing to the heart, mind and spirit has not worked in ending or decreasing domestic violence incidents in our country and in the Black community. While we are underachieving in so many arenas, we are overachieving in this one.

When strategizing on how to end domestic violence, think about it from more than an emotional, physical and spiritual perspective. Think about the economics of it. While we’re killing women, we’re killing the economy and our economic growth too.

Nsenga Burton, Ph.D. is managing editor of TheLoop21.com. She also writes the pop cultural blog Tune N, is a cultural clinic for Creative Loafing and an Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Goucher Collegelike it!

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Read more of TheLoop21.com’s Red, Black and Green series on domestic violence.

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LET’S GET HONEST COMMENTS:

Dr. Burton, are you aware of IAADV?  May I also recommend randijames.com and rights4mothers.wordpress.com? 

Also, on my blog, I have a rather harsh, in some senses, response to a Kansas Legislator promoting another fatherhood initiative.  This is an African American woman raised by a pioneer activist, her own mother.  Yet the logic totally eludes me – - search “Oletha Faust-Goudeau” on this site.  I then researched her, a bit, and found that some key connections had convinced her to go in a certain direction, and not another. 

I personally wish more blacks could homeschool, rather than put their kids in HeadStart, then inferior K-12 school systems in which too many teachers have bad attitudes, but the one with great attitudes still have a bureaucracy to deal with.   The educational, economic, and court/law enforcement institutions, as well as our federal tax dollars are closely woven together in an operational LOOP. 

The comparison wish slavery is a good one.  Slaveholders profited, immensely, from free labor — obviously if you pay a slave nothing, or a subsistence wage, discourage literacy, break up families, rape enough of the women, and repeatedly tell them their problem is really discontent with their lot, that’s a lot of effort, but it’s also a lot of profit.  hmmm . .. kind of reminds me of aspects of our educational system, too.  but back to the point. . . . . . .        

Appealing to the costs of abuse to ‘us all’ as a society assumes that those economic costs to those profiting are actually higher than the benefits of abuse, in which those profiting from it have actually invested.

Following my line of reasoning yet?  . . . .  A chronic abuser does so because it is allowed, it produces benefits that that individual wants, and because no one has forced him, or her, to stop. . . . .      

I challenge “us” to consider — really consider — is ‘we’re all in this together’ a myth or not, in matters of DV, neighborhood violence, or national debt. 

In Richmond, California, a community is in shock – it will last a few weeks or months, I am sure — when a 15 year old girl leaving a homecoming dance and walking to be picked up by her father — there was a father involved — never made it there.  She took a detour with some friends, inhaled a lot of alcohol, it seems, and then she was no longer one of the gang, she was gang-raped.  And photographed.  And the gang was substantial.  This only stopped when someone at a nearby houseparty finally got outraged and called the police.  It is all over TV and newspapers.

People, where do we really think the gang mentality is formed???  Why was a 15 year old wanting to drink?  Why, in one of the highest homicide cities in the nation, and that’s the truth, was not her Dad able to show up at the FRONT door?  How could a young girl not have some friends (not the come, get loaded, and whoa — here are the rest of my male friends who’d ‘love’ to get to know you type of friend) walk her straight into her Dad’s car?  If her Mom and Dad were employed, were they paying taxes for an educational system where THIS happened, and where a 15 year old doesn’t have a real friend to support her even a few dozen yards after a dance, and set some better values?   Would the fatherhood movement have helped avert this situation?  I sincerely doubt it.

In the USA we have a remarkable thing happened.  We have an African American President and First Lady.  Not only, but our President was raised by a single mother and is bi-racial.  How much better hope can we have that someone at the top of the ladder of the top country in the free world, or at least one close to the “top,” would speak for us, feel for us, care for those hurting and those at the bottom, especially after what he went through as a youngster. 

I voted for President Obama.  Afterwards, and after losing my livelihood, and children, and watching friends also take repeated hits, because of family court corruption, I looked at whitehouse.gov and found out where the word “mother” stood, as far as usage.  I found uncomfortably close connections pre- and post-election between fatherhood groups and individuals, particularly Jeffery Leving, Esq., of Illinois, and the honorable stream of feminist backlash conservatives wanting to make sure the WOMEN (any color, but for sure African American) didn’t get too uppity and forget their place in life.  I learned that the Obamas were in 2007 the 10th richest US Congressman couple, somewhere underneath Rockefeller, Boxer, McCain, I think Feinstein?, and a Senator from Tennessee who was making a large profit in corporate daycare business, multinational.  How “us” is this Congress, really?  How many of their children went through the public school system and came from dangerous neighborhoods?  How many of them inherited no wealth or, what’s more, no business sense? 

How many of them are women??  Let alone African-American women.  Let alone African American Women who raised children alone?  Apply this also to the other institutions running national policy — I mean at the decision-making level, not the support staff level..  And where these top decisionmakers ARE women, how many of them are holding to policies which go against the grain in the matter of stopping domestic violence, vs. making a profit studying low-income people ground up by one system or another of many?

I fled my home yesterday, briefly I hope, because of a male without a professional or personal life of his own other than his refusal to acknowledge that in the USA, it is permissible to divorce, and no, you canNOT come back in my life.   I happen to know some of the fathers’ rights talks he has been egged on by, and this was after one of the firmest, plainest NOs it is possible to deliver.

This man alone was never the sole problem.  I survived and got out.  For years now, I have appealed to their own economic common sense in the enablers both local, familial, and in an everwidening circle, all I ran into, seeking my own life back, and if possible some contact with children who were being, in essence, held hostage to this IDEA that a single mother is a threat to society and her own children, per se — no evidence required, but proesting this in any form is evidence of bad character — and trust me.  For enablers, it has to hit VERY close to home economically or personally, to cause a change of position, opinion, or action.  And for those with the added religious gas in the tank — it’s an offence to their God, it’s disrupting society, it’s against nature, to let a competent woman leave a violent man with children in tow — and not go back!!!   their own life {and apparently maybe there wasn’t much life outside of dominating women} – - may not even be close enough.

I am typing on a strange computer from a strange place, struggling again with another technology, and I am getting damn tired of this of the stress on my friends, and acquaintances, children, and self. 

No struggle is without costs, and all worthwhile things are going to take a fight.  But maybe — TheLoop21 folks — we need to really understand that there are indeed sides, and who is on which one.  

The marginalized of society are the canaries in the coal mine.  They are the barometer and feedback to its institutions, because those institutions are run by like human beings with like instincts, only not so tested yet, perhaps. 

So are you a canary, a miner, or do you own the mine– or hope to?  The miners and the canaries had best know which one they are appealing to when it comes to domestic violence in the community.  Are you part of the Gold Rush, or did you have the foresight to invest in Levi Strauss, and the technology and suppliers of the gold rush folk?  Where’s the parallel in this topic?

I can tell you who some of the Levi Strauss investors, with real foresight and a replicatable business plan, were in the BUSINESS of DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.  Can you?  If not poke around this blog, ones linked to it, or figure it out yourself.  HINT:   AFCC.  HINT:  MMPDI  HINT:  Center for Policy Research and a few others in the Denver area.  HINT:  practically the entire family law field.  Analyze a few of these, and you’ll recognize the business model.

Thank you for your tolerance, and hopefully this post offends someone enough to stop, pause, and ask other questions.

This author went underground for her safety, later emerged, and has a few things to say about the justice response to calling domestic violence a CRIME and not a Dispute. 

Nowadays we’re back, in forms, in the press too often, and elsewhere, into calling it “domestic abuse.”  It’s a kinder, gentler word, like a bowtie on the contents of a garbage disposal.  Less upsetting, you know, than the truth.

I shared in early October that my situation is in transition (whose ISN”T that’s been involved?).  So assume that if I post here, it might be relevant, and important.  I’m going to talk about the SF Bay Area’s reaction to attempting to exempt domestic violence cases from mandatory mediation.  Even after Mrs. Charan got killed, obeying a (certifiably insane) restraining order.  I recommend this book.  I ALSO recommend you look at the earlier version, somehow. 

When Violence Begins at Home (2nd ed.)
A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Ending Domestic Abuse
Second Edition
by K J Wilson Ed.D.

Since its initial publication, this extensive reference has provided victims of abuse and their caregivers with guidance on everything from indicators of an abusive relationship to advice on leaving an abusive partner, from anti-burnout tips for helpers and social workers to current trends in domestic violence legislation. Recommended and praised by authorities in the field of domestic violence such as Susan Brownmiller, Del Martin and Karen E. Munch (“indispensable”, “the bible”, “one of the best”), the previous edition of When Violence Begins at Home has sold over 30,000 copies.

http://www.hunterhouse.com/shopexd.asp?id=413

WHYquote this book now?

I have the 1997 version of this book.  AFTER I got OUT of my battering relationship and INTO family court, and was stumped at how the concept of my wish to retain a restraining order fell on deaf ears, spongy receptors, and virtual denial by the FIRST round through this venue, and as my livelihood (and work schedule, kids education, etc.) began to start the long dismantling process which later ended in child-stealing on an (unsupervised, of course) overnight, after which, Good Bye Mama (I barely saw the girls again) — at the BEGINNING of this process, I did what Moms do.  We go get informed.  I went onto a used books distributor and ordered as much as I could afford.  This was one of them.  It was SO helpful to me then, and I photocopied some of the pages to relatives to explain how this power-based “intervention” in my life AFTER I got free wasn’t appropriate, or going to be worked, in fact, back off! 

You see, I hadn’t yet processed that there’s a type of family dynamics that tolerates abuse, but will NOT tolerate talking about it, which is apparently stepping on some sacred cow.   I have many times spoken of the family court arena as “shock therapy” and some kind of total immersion experience (think baptism, if this fits your religion) into, this world ain’t what it was cracked up to be.   And those labels on the doors?  They are VERY misleading, for sure. 

========

This has to be a “fast” post on this resource book.  I am going to quote from the preface by Del Martin, and her (I presume? though am not sure) comments on how the system responds to mediation.  You see, in our area, we have MANDATORY mediation.  If it were not mandatory, more kids (I assert) would still be living with their nonbattering parents, when that’s an issue, and the court professionals would have to go drum up some more business elsewhere.    Due process MIGHT take place, and as a consequence, PERHAPS the courts wouldn’t be so overcrowded (supposedly the real cause for “mediation,” although I suspect a closer cause is to be found closer to the AFCC folks, and their wish to transform the language of criminal law, which is “old” (fashioned, i.e.) in to the more fashionable, and MUCH better funded, when it comes to HHS and OVW, etc. — behavioral sciences field.  For AFCC.com,search my blog. or some of the others linked here,  for more on this outfit.  Also see comments on NAFCJ.net, highly relevant, still.

QUOTING, for public information only, from Foreword by Del Martin, author of “Battered Wives.” 

page x:

Dr. Wilson states that the Texas Council on Family Violence considers traditional counseling, family therapy, and mediation inappropriate in a battering intervention.  Mandating couple’s counseling or mediation places the battered woman at a disadvantage and in further jeopardy.

We are not dealing with domestic disputes or communication problems.  The batterer communicates quite clearly that he is the head of the household and will use force to maintain that power over family members.  We are dealing with abject, unreasonable VIOLENCE.  . . .. Appropriate intervention must deal with the batterer’s violent behavior.  You cannot mediate violence.  This bears repeating over and over again.

THIS part is relevant:

Unfortunately the California legislature has not yet understood that message.  Despite the 1990 recommendation of the Natioanl Cuncil of Juvenile and Family Court judges that NO judge mandate mediation in cases in which family violence has occurred, California’s judiciary persists in blocking attempts to exempt domestic violence cases from our mandated mediation of child custody and visitation “disputes.”  The best we have been able to get is the right of the battered woman to have a separate hearing without the presence of her battering spouse, to have a supporter accompany her during the hearing (I rarely got) and to preumse that mediators and judges will be trained in the dynamics of domestic v iolence.”

“SF’s Commission on the Status of Women created a subcommittee [when in doubt, do a committee, right?] to look at a citywide response to DV following the murdedr of Veena Charan by her husband in 1990.  Except for one thing, she had done everything by the book over a period of 15 months.  She obtained a restraining order and awas awarded temporary physical custody of her 9 year old son.  She sought a divorce and participated in mediation through Family Court Services as mandated by Californa law.  She cooperated with the prosecution of her husband on felony wife beating.  (See my Giles’ Amicus post).  The one thing she didn’t do was to avail herself of the safety of a shelter for battered women and their children.”

 

And now she’s dead, and her son’s natural mother is gone:

Joseph Charan was sentenced to 12 months in jail.  THE SENTENCE WAS SUSPENDED, HOWEVER, IN LIEU OF CONDITIONAL PROBATION:  domestic violence cunseling, a stay-away order, and 30 days in jail.  A few days later, before reporting to probation, he murdered his wife in front of teachers and schoolchildren {so much for it being just a “family” matter} before killing himself.”  (emphases mine).

I really hope readers will check out this book.  Here is another section, page xi:

All governmental departments that were involved in any way were coopeartive in tracing Veena Charan through the system to determine what went wrong.  All except the Family Court Services director, who claimed immunity because of client confidentiality.  The presiding judge of Family Court and the city attorney backed her position.  Members of the investigating committee were frustrated.  They needed to know what impact mediation had on Veena Charan.”

Perhaps they might have focused on WHY those 12 months became only 30 days, not leaving Veena enough time to get herself and her son safe, and reflect on what next. 

“Since then unsuccessful attempts have been made to amend the mediation clause in the law to exempt cases in which there is a history of violent episodes.  A father’s rights still prevail over the endangerment of wife and child.”

I’d like to mention here, I LIKE men, I just don’t like violence as a substitute for relationship.  Any father’s rights visitors (we know there are several around these blogs), we are not talking about all men, only about ones who have already been convicted of beating their wives.  Or who did this without a conviction.  OK?  So don’t take it personal if the shoe don’t fit.  There ARE some men, I can testify personally, it DOES. 

From her page ix:

“The role of the judiciary must not be minimized.  Educating judges can be a problem because of their discretionary power and the assumption that they are above public reproach.”  Last year (i.e., 1996), the SF eExaminer revealed that SF municipal court judges were using “civil compromise” in domestic violence misdemeanor cases.  Defendants were being let off with an apology and a few hours of counseling.  Those of us who had orchestrated changes in policies of the criminal justice system were shocked.  . . . . . (para).  Supervisor Barbara Kaufman called for public hearings, and the judges were outraged that we dared to challenge their discretionary privilege. {{Gee, sounds like the guy I used to live with..}}   But the civil compromise clause is a legal option for cases involving neighborhood disputes, property damage, or petty theft.  It was never meant to be used in the disposition of domestic violence caseloads.

It was NOT meant for things that could lead to multiple deaths, or even one, or even a broken bone, or homelessness, or things that DV tends to lead to.  In case you haven’t guessed, I am opposed to the use of mediation at ALL when violence has already been identified, which the presence of a civil OR criminal restraining order should establish, if it was properly granted.

I know how many people cover up this type of violence, and I was a reporter.  I was not a woman covering it up, I asked for help.  It took YEARS before that help came.  Then it was stripped away by the simple act of taking a quick off-ramp into the family law venue, which was ready and waiting for just such cases.  We even hit the mediator BEFORE any divorce was filed — because children were involved. 

I’m out of time today, but my comments, reading this 12years after it was published:

1.  The author talks (incl. of this foreword) talks a lot — as many of these coalitions do — about CIVIL vs. CRIMINAL venues, with a brief side-long glance at FAMILY.  However family law was in full swing by the 1990s, it began at least back in 1980s, and the push into mediation, earlier than that.  See afcc.org.  It’s what the family law venue is ABOUT, primarily.  I find that odd — are we not doing research?  Are we on a one-track line of research?  Which brings me to:

2.  “The love of money is the root of all evil.”  Oops, I didn’t mean to get religious.  OK, “follow the money trail.”  If these groups and women were advocating, including with legislators, commissions, coalitions, and so forth, that mediation NOT be appropriate for DV, andyet it’s still MANDATORY for it (in this SF area referenced), then WHY? 

Possibly, with the Internet not in as full swing as it is now, the facts had not yet surfaced.  But again, look at the funding going to the California State Judicial Commission (for one, example) and look at the Access/Visitation and Fatherhood funding.

Sometimes, some days, I wonder whether the feminist (and I’m one, believe me, by now!), battered women’s advocates and coalitions are — at least nowadays — playing Good Cop/Bad Cop in these matters, by simply not talking about the economics. Perhaps if there were more mothers who’d lost custody in their ranks, or battered MOTHERS in the ranks (I can’t assess, but I DO wonder), they would quickly see the role of the Child Support Agency (“OCSE” nationally) in all this. 

The flora and fauna to study in why women are STILL getting killed, children molested, others abducted, Moms in prison for trying to protect, Dads sprung  after 2 days in jail, to go out and murder (just substitute the names, they seem endless sometimes), in that if the effort even is made to prosecute, and it actually HAPPENS (not something a battered parent typically has under HER real control), it’s STILL no guarantee of safety. 

Nor is training a batterer, a mediator, or a judge to hopefully pay more attention to the training than to the rewards at the end of the tunnel for a case well “disposed” of, thanks to help from the government in Designer Family Land, where the real crisis is fatherlessness.  Not moral turpitude in government employees, a system of bribes, or a system DESIGNED to minimize and ignore domestic violence, assault & battery behavior, and instead more into publishing tomes on “Parenting after violence.

Please, let’s turn those spectacles around and start looking at the SYSTEM with a critical eye.  I’m not interested in so much statistics, and probability when it comes to the life and safety of someone I am related to.  I am interested in:

LIFE,

Liberty

PURSUIT of happiness, which stalking, and being trapped in the family law venue, is kind of really getting in the way of.  To me, happiness was taking care of my kids, working, and participating in the community, developing good relationships with other people.

When I and my children are regarded as someone else’s property, that dynamic HAS to change.  And that includes becoming a “statistic” in someone else’s social science study of low-income people, or parents int he courts, or the impact of mediation on cases involving domestic violence, or any OTHER thing that has a federal grant number on the resulting report. 

ENOUGH, already!

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