Civil Disobediance // Current

Environmentalists protest at Australian coal plant

Environmental activists chained themselves to a conveyor belt at one of Australia's largest coal-fired electricity plants... more

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US nuns come home to discover 'terrorist' status

Two Roman Catholic nuns whose non-violent action against nuclear weapons landed them with prison sentences returned home to... more

BuddyP
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Why would the media lie??

Doesnt seem right as to why they would claim untruths about why the protestors came down.... I could guess they want people to... more

regjoeschmo
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The feminist movement is worried about the fatherhood movement. The California National Organization for Women recently issued a 95-page report called Disorder in the Courts: Mothers and Their Allies Take on the Family Law System, in which they warn "the fathers' rights movement has been gaining strength and legitimacy. Fatherhood groups are well-funded, well-organized and publicly supported through conservative mouthpieces in the media." In the report, many prominent figures in the Feminist Family Law Movement (FFLM) call for a "mothers' rights movement" to block the rising fatherhood movement.

The National Organization for Women attacked divorced dads in a resolution at its national conference in July. This spring several branches of NOW, including New York and Michigan, issued Action Alerts against moderate legislative attempts to help dads remain a part of their children's lives after divorce or separation.

One of the fatherhood movement's primary goals is to get family courts and family law to properly address the issue of parental alienation. Parental alienation occurs when one parent, usually the custodial parent, has turned his or her children against the other parent, destroying the loving bonds the children and the target parent once enjoyed.

The fatherhood movement has had some modest success in creating awareness of parental alienation, both in the courtroom and in the media. Now the FFLM is hitting back hard. NOW's July resolution denounced Parental Alienation Syndrome as a "defense strategy for batterers and sexual predators that purports to explain a child's estrangement from one parent, or explains away allegations against the estranged parent of abuse/sex abuse of child, by blaming the protective parent." According to NOW, the employment of this "unethical, unconstitutional, and dangerous" tactic is so common as to constitute "epidemic levels of abuse and dysfunction in our court system."

California NOW's report attacks the fatherhood movement and relentlessly assails PAS. CANOW Executive Director Helen Grieco calls PAS a "scam," and says, "As activists we must continue to expose the true agenda of the Fathers' Rights movement. We must eradicate the gender bias...that is rampant in our family courts." The annual Battered Mothers Custody Conference, which will be held January 12-14 in Albany, New York, espouses similar views.

Newsweek magazine, in a recent article called "Fighting Over the Kids: Why Parents Who Batter Win Custody," claims that "many parents nationwide…have lost custody due to a controversial concept known as parental alienation…Parental alienation is now the leading defense for parents accused of abuse in custody cases, according to domestic-violence advocates. And it's working."

Parental alienation was the leading topic at a recent Dallas, Texas domestic violence conference sponsored by the Dallas County District Attorney and numerous domestic violence groups. The Dallas Morning News reports that parental alienation is "an increasingly common defense in child-custody battles [which] is raising concerns among those who work with victims of domestic violence…Advocates of domestic violence victims say a growing number of batterers are using the tactic in court to gain custody of their children." Recent lopsided articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Contra Costa Times, the Providence Journal and many others have expressed similar sentiments.

Last October PBS aired Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories on affiliates across the country. The film pointed to an alleged epidemic of loving, protective mothers losing custody of their children to abusive, molesting fathers after the fathers claimed parental alienation.

MORE IN LiNKThe feminist movement is worried about the fatherhood movement. The California National Organization for Women recently issued a... more

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1 month ago

Harvard Law article on Family courts.........

Alec Baldwin is on a roll - just recently, the affable actor won an Emmy Award for his role on the critically-acclaimed sitcom, 30 Rock. But the 50 year old Baldwin wasn't smiling when he entered Ames Courtroom last Thursday, September 25. He was making his second appearance at HLS to engage in a serious discussion with Professor Jeannie Suk on the problems of divorce courts and custody proceedings.

Baldwin's encounter with the world of family law began in 2000, when he and his then-wife Kim Basinger agreed to separate. The proceedings dragged on to 2004, when the two were awarded joint custody of their daughter, Ireland Eliesse. In 2007, when Ireland failed to answer a call from her father, Baldwin left a now-famous phone message deriding her as a "rude, thoughtless little pig". A recording of the comment was released to the media, and it immediately set off a firestorm. It also led to a messy lawsuit in which Baldwin accused Basinger of leaking the tape.

Against this backdrop, Baldwin's frustration with the family law system - which he saw extending far beyond courts and into the mindsets and attitudes of the public at large - was palpable throughout his discussion with Suk. Baldwin said his new book, which chronicles the experience of his divorce, was filled with "pain, regreat, and anger about the law," as well as his "frustration [and] confusion with the [legal] process". His custody battle, he reported, was "arduous, slow, glacial".

Baldwin reserved much of his consternation for the gender biases which he believes pervade family law. He was concerned when, from the outset, he was assured the specific custody officer his case had been assigned was noted as "good for fathers". "It was troubling," he observed, "that other [custody offices] might have been bad."

Professor Suk noted that Baldwin's experiences of gender bias had led him to become a pioneer of the fathers' rights movement in California. Baldwin, pointing out that this effort now went by the term "shared parenting", discussed his reasons for becoming involved.

Different genders, he noted, were tarred with different stereotypes by courts - men were seen, in particular, as "abusers". "Men walk into a courtroom with a cloud of male aggression overshadowing them," Baldwin said. Adversaries in custody proceedings could often reconstruct otherwise neutral events post facto, he claimed, by using courts' presumptions of male behavior to make them seem like episodes of abuse.

Professor Suk agreed at least that the definition of violence had expanded too far; any instance of "bad behavior" could be used to determine that custody by a parent might not be in the best interest of a child. "The pendulum has swung too far," Baldwin concurred, recounting an incident in which a representative of the National Organization for Women told him the group thought of wrongfully-convicted men as "collateral damage" as long as one abused spouse or child could be saved under the current legal regime.

As a consequence of such sentiments, Baldwin asserted, fathers were often alienated from their children throughout divorce proceedings, and sometimes for long thereafter. He emotionally recounted how the fathers of children's friends came to play more of a role in their lives than their own, and how fathers would wind up spending more time talking to lawyers than to their children. The actor characterized parental alienation as a form of child abuse itself.

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MORE IN LINKAlec Baldwin is on a roll - just recently, the affable actor won an Emmy Award for his role on the critically-acclaimed sitcom, 30... more

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1 month ago

Daddy Activist Claims Family Court Lacks Due Process

paul fisher asks gov strickland for investigation into Ohio family court “The family court system needs to be... more

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5 responses

1 month ago

Common sense economics, stop your representative from robbing us all blind!!!

If you are watching mainstream news you will NOT hear any of this. The revolution is at hand. This BAILOUT, and if you say... more

victimofcoal
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1 response

1 month ago

Woman breaks glass on boyfriend's head, swings sword at him--but don't call it 'Domestic Violence'

If it's domestic violence and it's committed by a woman, it's not domestic violence. In stories of women attacking... more

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10 responses

1 month ago

Glenn Sacks debates Geraldo Rivera on PAS

I appeared on Fox's nationally-syndicated Morning Show with Mike and Juliet Thursday to debate Geraldo Rivera and Dr. Joy... more

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10 responses

1 month ago

Dr Phil to do a show on PAS

"Brainwashed by My Parents" It’s being called the ultimate form of child abuse -- brainwashing your children... more

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1 month ago

Loyal Daughter Defends Her Dad's Reputation Against Biden's Slurs

"Since his vice presidential nomination, Joe Biden's 2007 statement that a 'guy who allegedly ... drank his lunch' and drove the truck that struck and killed his first wife and daughter has gained national media traction...since Barack Obama tapped Biden to be his running mate on Aug. 23, The New York Times, National Public Radio and The Economist have run stories that characterized Dunn as a drunken driver.

"Alcohol didn't play a role in the 1972 crash...The senator's statements don't jibe with news and law enforcement reports from the time, which cleared driver Curtis C. Dunn, who died in 1999, of wrongdoing.

"'To see it coming from [Biden's] mouth, I just burst into tears,' Dunn's daughter, Glasgow resident Pamela Hamill, 44, said Wednesday. 'My dad was always there for us. Now we feel like we should be there for him because he's not here to defend himself'...

"Hamill, one of seven children, was 8 years old at the time of the accident. She remembers her father watching news reports of the crash while wearing a sling to support a shoulder injury he suffered in the accident.

"She said Dunn was always 'solemn' around the Christmas holidays. Years later, when her brother planned to get married on Dec. 18 [the date of the accident], Dunn told the family 'I don't celebrate on that day,' Hamill said."

Senator Joe Biden has been falsely attributing his former wife's and infant daughter's tragic deaths to a drunk driver, and the now-deceased truckdriver's loyal daughter is fighting back.

I don't know if Biden's statements are due to carelessness, his flair for the overdramatic, or his pronounced tendency to cast men as villains. Whatever the cause, his statements have been enormously unfair to former truck driver Curtis Dunn, who is remembered fondly by his daughter as a loving father.

From 1972 crash still haunts driver's family (News Journal, 9/4/08):

Since his vice presidential nomination, Joe Biden's 2007 statement that a "guy who allegedly ... drank his lunch" and drove the truck that struck and killed his first wife and daughter has gained national media traction.

Alcohol didn't play a role in the 1972 crash, investigators found. But as recently as last week, the syndicated TV show Inside Edition aired a clip from 2001 of Biden describing the accident to an audience at the University of Delaware and saying the truck driver "stopped to drink instead of drive."

MORE IN LINK"Since his vice presidential nomination, Joe Biden's 2007 statement that a 'guy who allegedly ... drank his... more

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1 month ago

Single moms by choice

VIDEO IN LINK There are options to have a child with an anonymous donor. Meanwhile People (like myself) arent anonymous, but... more

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5 responses

1 month ago

Why good dads make moms jealous

Jealousy is one of the main reasons why Parental Alienation happens. People need to get over themselves and think of the children... more

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3 responses

1 month ago

Former same-sex partner gets parental rights

MISSOULA, Mont. - A judge ruled in favor of a woman who sought parental rights to a boy and girl adopted by her former same-sex... more

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1 month ago

Ohio Supreme court lacks due process

The Ohio Supreme Court Fisher Case Should equal shared parenting be denied simply because the parents hate each other but are... more

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11 responses

1 month ago

Man braves thunderstorm while sitting atop a crane

Donald Tenn is a California father who says he “had to take action” for his young daughter Madison. He started his fourth day this morning on a wet construction crane in Columbus Ohio alone. Last night police warned of thunderstorms. John Fowler, national coordinator for Fathers 4 Justice was able to talk activist father Paul Fisher down.

Tenn refused. “I have nothing to lose”, he said through a walkie-talkie. Earlier he told me, “I’ve followed the law, been bounced back and forth between states, and been falsely accused of domestic violence. I finally won visitation in Illinois. The judge even reprimanded her mother. I had one visit. That’s it. She’s able to use services funded by the Violence Against Women Act to illegally keep me from my daughter.”

Until Madison’s mother illegally abducted her to Illinois, Tenn was her stay-at-home parent. It’s Madison he worries about, not himself. He says she’s being hurt by the family court system and he has to protect her. A member of Fathers 4 Justice, the gender-neutral civil rights group fighting for equal parental rights, he says he won’t come down until Governor Schwarzenegger agrees to a nonpartisan investigation into the family court system. Calls to the Governor’s office have yet to be returned.

Tenn’s Sacramento phone rings off the hook at all hours of the day. Friends say he always makes time to listen to parents trying to avoid or recover from the devastation of losing contact with their children. When he isn’t grieving for his own little girl Madison, he says, his heart aches for the thousands of other parents he knows who are experiencing the same thing.

Tenn has been sending Madison packages in the mail about 3 times a week. “I’ve probably sent over 300 packages so far,” he told me recently, “they include books, healthy snacks, small toys and stickers. She loves stickers”

When asked if he wants to keep Madison away from her mother when this is resolved, he says, “no.” “I’ve always wanted equal custody, equal parenting and equal responsibility, for each of us.” Asked if his case was unique he replied,”I’ve traveled the country talking to other parents. And what I hear all the time, from mothers and fathers, is that they want equal parental rights, equal physical and legal custody.”
Donald Tenn is a California father who says he “had to take action” for his young daughter Madison. He started his... more

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9 responses

1 month ago

Shared parenting survey

"Children thrive with the active involvement of both parents. Children and parents should be encouraged to spend substantial... more

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4 responses

1 month ago

Fathers 4 Justice Dads Refuse To Budge

Fathers 4 Justice Dads Refuse To Budge 2008-09-29 at 1:31 am · Filed under Activism, Child Support & Custody, Family,... more

regjoeschmo
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8 responses

1 month ago

The Political Argument for Fixing VAWA Now

The difference between policy and politics is not always well understood. Policy are the laws and strategies that politicians put in place that actually affect people. Politics is what politicians say and do to get your vote. It is often said good policy is good politics but this is not always true, because sometimes good policies are hard to explain to voters.

Over the past several years we having been winning the policy debate among people primarily concerned with policy, including think tanks and talk radio. But we have made less progress with politicians, who have to think about politics to win elections.

One way to convince politicians that the politics is on their side is to show them the votes they will get by supporting a given policy. We have calculated that 16.5 million voters, or 13.5% of likely voters, have suffered from the abusive misuse of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) or have a loved one who has, and will vote based on that experience. The nationwide and state by state calculations are shown below.

Further people adversely affected by VAWA, and their family members, represent a cross section of the electorate and very often feel so strongly about what happened to them that any recognition of the ways in which VAWA is misused would override all other issues, and they may very well switch their vote.

The next obvious question is how many votes will be lost by opposing the egregious flaws in the current version VAWA. This number is harder to calculate, but based on a National Organization for Women claimed membership of 500,000, that would leave them with less than 1/2% of likely voters. 1% or 2% of likely voters would be a very generous estimate because not all NOW members support VAWA's gender-discriminatory policies. This small group projects an inflated image of their numbers by influencing the 85% of likely voters who have had no direct experience with the system, and so are unfamiliar with the injustices caused by our domestic violence policies. No one is in favor of domestic violence, and those who don't really know anything about how our domestic violence system actually works naively believe the policies truly help domestic violence victims and don't harm innocent citizens.

Looking at the plusses and minuses of addressing the harm caused by the loopholes and other flaws in VAWA, it seems clear that Republicans would face no loss of voters because it is unlikely these voters would ever vote for a Republican. But even for Democrats who might consider addressing VAWA's flaws, the politics still works in their favor. As noted above, our calculations show that 13.5% of voters have either been seriously harmed by VAWA's flawed policies, or have had someone they love harmed by those policies. The number of voters for whom this issue is a top priority greatly outnumbers the generous estimate of the number of voters who think the current system is just fine.

But all politicians, Democratic or Republican, must be concerned with how the message is received by the 85% of voters who have no direct experience with DV.

In a nut shell, the truth, fair and just policies, and the numbers are all on our side. What the other side has is an overly-simple analysis of a complex problem. So their message, although wrong, is easier for the public to understand. So, we too must craft a simple message for politicians, but one based on truth and justice. One example of such a message is:

"VAWA inspired DV laws clog our courts with false claims of domestic violence, which prevents true victims from getting help."

Once a politician has been convinced that fixing VAWA will result in a net gain of votes, they will need simple and truthful messages for use in their campaigns
The difference between policy and politics is not always well understood. Policy are the laws and strategies that politicians put... more