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  • The Justification for the New Stolen generation
  • By Amfortas
  • amfortas
  • 05/08/2009 Make a Comment (1)
  • Contributed by: amfortas ( 7 articles in 2009 )
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The Justification for the New Stolen Generation.


I dedicate this podcast to my estranged daughter who I miss so much and to my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased

Here in Part one I will discuss how a book written in 1973 lies at the heart of Family Court practices and the damage that is being done to our children, fathers and society; to Truth, Justice and The Family.

One of the difficult issues that we have in trying to deal with parental disenfranchisement is that few have an adequate explanation for it.

To many, it is an issue they just cannot understand.

To others, it barely crosses their mind.

Until it happens to them.

When a child is taken from you it produces a kind of intense, speechless frustration and despair. A heartbreak. A rage in some. A devastation to so many. A parent cannot retreat away from the sense of blame, of shame, of having shirked responsibility, and a deferral to forces beyond their control.

It is disempowering.

A few mothers know what this disempowerment feels like. Many, many fathers do.

It stems from and produces situations that are complicated and human while not beyond normal humane resolution, it is the result of handing daily family complexity over to Political determination, Public Policy makers and inevitably the Courts.

And the courts do what they always do. They make a decision. You might not like it, but that's what you get.

Routinely in All Anglophile countries, Family Courts, the Divorce Courts, disenfranchise and dispossess fathers of their children and saddle them with intense heartache and financial costs – both of which last for years.

There is a cost to the children too; the loss of a loving parent and a higher risk to all aspects of their little lives.

Of course, were it to happen to a specific ethnic group, such as Aboriginals in Australia, all hell breaks loose, reports are written and are emotively titled ‘The Stolen Generation’, the chatterati shout loudly about human rights and the Australian prime Minister is told to apologise and make recompense.

But fathers, who suffer far more from the everyday and far greater stealing of children from them, have no such vocal advocates and no apologies offered. No official authority speaks for them.

No one is speaking for the children either.

We have a generation of Fathers that are shell-shocked and want to know why, in the face of manifest injustice, the courts decide what they do and why so many are complicit in this tragedy.

There is a book which goes some way to giving at least a partial explanation.

It is a sort of ‘Necessary Reading’, a ‘Bible’ for the Family Courts and Divorce Court Judges.

It is called…

"The Best Interests of the Child – The Least Detrimental Alternative"

written by Goldstein, Solnit, Goldstein and Freud.

It was first Published in 1973, right at the start of the ubiquitous Family Court and No-fault Divorce era.

By the way, that’s Anna Freud, daughter of the largely discredited psycho-analyst of the last century. Associated with this book, she adds that cachet of psychological respectability and ‘maternal’ empathy.

It is of interest that the initial part of the title, a very widely used phrase today – comes from Mein Kampf, written by Adolph Hitler, in which he wrote,

“People will accept any limitations to their Freedom if you tell them that it is in the Best Interest of the Children”
Did YOU know it came from the National Socialist Adolph Hitler?

The blurb on the back of the book asks some questions: "What principles should guide the courts in deciding the fate of hundreds of thousands of children involved every year in parental divorces and family breakdowns? What should justify state intrusion on the privacy of family relationships? How should professionals - judges, lawyers, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists - conduct themselves in pursuing 'the best interests' of children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused?"

Take note of that last phrase –

“children who have been abandoned, neglected or abused”

And the book IS just such a Justification for intrusion by the State– and more – for cruel and unusual punishment of children and fathers.

Over the past forty years that punishment has become very usual and all of society is feeling the pain.

The ‘Least Detrimental Alternative’ at least recognises that all the alternatives up for discussion are detrimental. But what sort of mind can settle for the least detrimental when positive and helpful alternatives can be found with just a little empathy and compassion and thought?

This book is used to ‘guide’ the conduct of the 70% of divorces initiated unilaterally by women against perfectly innocent loving fathers, and where no abuse or neglect or abandonment is a reason. Such circumstances cry out for an empathetic response and some help to families, not a detrimental alternative.

It seems to be a manual of sorts, a ‘cookbook’, although it repeatedly uses the word "guidelines" to explain itself. It appears on a variety of reading lists for family court law courses and professionals at large. Indeed, the preface claims "it would be difficult to imagine an expert working in the field of child custody or family law in the United States - or in Canada, England, or many other nations – and that includes Australia of course - who has not been influenced by [this book]".

On the back, a professor of psychology at Yale demands "Without question, it should be compulsory reading for judges, lawyers, social workers and clinicians".

The American Bar Association’s Juvenile and Child Welfare Law Reporter is quoted: "Essential reading for anyone charged with the protection of children in the legal process."

So what principles do guide the courts, what does justify state intrusion which snatches children from fathers in particular, even where no wrong has been done, no abuse or neglect or abandonment involved; and how do professionals conduct themselves in the pursuit of 'the best interests' of children?

These are not normally stupid people. The Courts run on principles of Law and the professionals are schooled in ethics.

But caution. They are the Frankfurt School ethics. Cultural Marxist.

And they are fallible human beings who have all the usual professional integration issues which include contending with practical day-to-day Income earning that conflicts with an insidious Ideology that underpins their education. They are educated in our Universities, still reeling from the Cultural Marxism onslaught of the 60 and 70 and 80s, and earning a living in a Free-market environment. This is particularly so for the lawyers, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists. Where they must compete for their own small, local ‘market-share’, the more socialist public purse hand-out money they can get, the better they get on.

The effect on these professions is that they become rent-seeking scum, feeding off misery. The more misery they can generate, the more income they get.

The Judges of course have an untouchable Public trough salary of epic proportion all sown up.

Who will fight against a system that pays them a quarter of a million dollars every year and a fat pension with absolutely no criticism of how they conduct their office? In fact, no scrutiny.

I acknowledged that they are fallible human beings, and they work in an environment where they must follow certain rules to solve difficult personal, sometimes intimate problems. Sometimes the problems are so difficult that they fall back blindly on whatever rules seem to apply and thoughtful justice dies.

They follow certain rules laid down as ‘Precedent’, both in the Court itself and in their Professional spheres. But starting from a particularly anti-family Marxist–Feminist bias, such precedents build to a body of practice that gets more draconian, vicious, anti-family, anti-father, anti-male and anti-western-society by the day.

The problems dealt with by the Family Court are complex and intimate, and to make matters easier to deal with, such everyday normal legal Principles as Truth, Evidence and Proof are dispensed with, and likely ‘balance of probability’ used instead. It is a ‘Least common denominator’ approach. Perjury, which is predominantly from the mothers, is ignored as ‘emotion’. Prevention of future possible abuse drives a ‘just in case’ punishment attitude, despite no grounds of past or present incidents. False Allegations become the tactical devices of combative lawyers.

The short review of the book at Amazon.com points out: "Many conclusions...are controversial."

But controversy is nipped in the bud by the secrecy rules which do away with the Transparency of Justice that every other type of Court abides by. It is a Star Chamber.

The Professionals have their own ‘Confidentiality’ rules that hide their practices too.

The argument, as Amazon says, is tight and well presented, one might even say seductive, unless, that is, you're a parent looking straight down the barrel.
Let us look for a moment at the principal author. Anna Freud, a posthumous author, was Sigmund Freud's youngest daughter. She was apparently his favorite and sought to follow at least partially in his footsteps but focusing on the psychoanalysis of children. Wikipedia provides an outline of her life and notes that she "did not have a very close bond with her mother and had difficulties getting along with her siblings". She suffered from depression and eating disorders.

She was extensively psycho-analysed by her father. The intrusiveness of that and the emotionally conflicting transference and resentment issues should raise a few question marks.

She was not exactly what we'd call a "normal" child. Her experience of the average late 20th Century family was virtually non-existent.

She established and worked at the Hampstead Child Therapy clinic which is now named for her. She learned much of the impact of the deprivation of parental care on children from young war victims and particularly concentration camp survivors. The children concerned, that she had such a reasonable and humane interest in, are clearly a far cry from those refugees of the modern divorce industry and to implicitly treat them as equivalent would be an egregious error.

In part two of this podcast I will look more closely at some of the ‘guiding principles’ advocated by the authors and the sheer bias and twisted thinking that is guiding our family law practitioners.

Some explanation and understanding may be had.

I end here thanking my good friend Christian J for his help in presenting this podcast.

Thank you for listening.





Hello again. This is Amfortas with Part Two of a podcast entitled:

The Justification for the New Stolen Generation

In this part I will look at some of the guiding principles advocated in the ‘Bible’ of the family Court, the 1973 book "The Best Interests of the Child – The Least Detrimental Alternative"

It also guides the Family Court’s multitude of professional hangers-on, the rent-seeking scum described in part one. I will show the detrimental effects of seeking the least detrimental alternative.

In the introduction to the paperback edition, it says,

...there is little consensus, in law or in science, about what "best interests" means. In the absence of a clarifying definition, personal preferences of lawyers, judges, and social workers may govern decision-making. And when two adults compete for a child's custody, "best interests of the child" can easily be subverted by being equated with "the best interests of the more 'deserving' adult".

And subverted it easily is; by lawyers and Judges and particularly Social workers who do exercise personal preference. There are doubtless many among us who are well familiar with this effect as the Family law makes it very clear that it is just such a competition and the most ‘deserving’ parent is established on the basis of genitalia and that ‘deserving’ supported by a biased professional machinery.

Other potential (and real) failures of the system are introduced:

For example, it says: Failure to recognize and respect cultural differences in the way parents interact with their children may result in removal of children from their parents based on a state agency's culture-bound perception of abuse.

Indeed. But I would take it further. Gender differences are not even mentioned, in line with the then developing Feminist theory that men and women were the same. It underpins the Family Court view that a father is redundant, and a child can do without a father altogether as it will get all it needs from the mother.

Also, State agencies have their own culture which is quite different from day-to-day life as any tax payer knows. How real is the life reflected by the tax form manual? Do we really expect the courts to be any different, rule bound and prejudiced as it is?

It is "prejudiced" in the sense of pre-judgement in the expectation that everyone who walks in the door must fit some pre-defined mould or template. Roles are allocated. And the main mould used is gender.

The book’s introduction includes a number of points of advocacy which serve to warn against the very obvious biases that can creep into the ‘system. Biases which have subsequently crept in with a roar of welcome by the Practitioners.

Bias even make its way into the introduction’s own wording...

The interests of the child, the introduction says, are to be considered separate and apart from the interests of her family as a unit only if and when the family fails to provide [care] according to minimum cultural standards

Notice that? A Freudian slip, perhaps? The authors refer to the generic child as ‘her’. As far as I can tell, they continue to use only the female gender for this purpose throughout the book. There are no ‘his’ or ‘him’ other than in specific cases. Elsewhere in English, when the ‘male’ word is used to include the female, an age old lexical convention, it is deemed sexist – not PC - but not the other way around – of course.

By sticking to "she" and "her" throughout their book, the authors set a tone which does injustice to fully half of their intended wards.

What are we to conclude?

Are the authors pandering to a prejudiced audience?

Or are they subtly teaching them?

Another potential failure is flagged: Once the family ceases to function adequately for a child- it says - if the child is abused or abandoned or when separating parents cannot agree on custody - the state should intervene.

This is interesting - parents arguing over custody are, in this sense, automatically lumped together with neglectful and abusive parents.

Parents are quite capable of having alternative views on custody while not neglecting nor abusing their children. The precision of language is important here and this already exposes an assumption that goes unquestioned.

It is the thin edge of just one of many wedges.

Is it not possible to establish laws which require intervention only if there is neglect or abuse? What if there was a default position of joint and equal custody and access and to interfere with that or to fail to step up to one's responsibilities should be considered as abuse or neglect?

That, I suggest, would be a far better approach.

Mendacious and vilifying argument against Joint custody is one of those issues at the torrid end of feminist vituperation.

Another issue is raised in the book. Once the state intervenes it must put the child's interests first, - the Authors say - over and above that of even the most "deserving" of adults. Placement of a child- they say- must never be used to compensate an adult who has suffered misfortune or injury or injustice at the hands of another adult or the state; otherwise respect for the blood tie can only too easily be turned against the child's interests.

The authors seem appropriately concerned that child placement should not be used as compensation but they don't say anything against punishment for a parent.

Blood tie is of no consequence. It matters little to them. The child is not the Parents’ child once she or he reaches Court, it implies. It is already a ward of the State.

A juggernaut can, and is, driven through those gaps.

In all other areas of law, ALL people are considered equal before the law. Classes of people are not to be considered. Men, women, rich, poor, they are all to be treated equally. The landowner and the peasant have been treated as equal before the Law since Magna Carta.

Not in the Family Law though. A ‘superior’ class has been created. Children.

Now who is going to argue with that?

Adolph Hitler knew the answer.

No-one; if you tell them it is in the best interests of the children.

Especially if the children are given to the mother who becomes dependant on the State.

Well, I do. I argue with it. And I invite you to as well.

It is advocated that "The placement should be unconditional". Later on in the book, the authors argue that the courts should not even assign visitation to a non-custodial parent. It seems that the custodial parent's attitudes, motivations and actions are to be considered above reproach. There is no suggestion that obstructing the child's relationship with the non-custodial parent, or undermining his or her parental authority is to be considered abuse or neglect.

The sole custody model is first stage parental alienation.

Parental alienation is child abuse. It follows that the sole custody model is child abuse.
This 1973 book was written ahead of data gathered over the subsequent forty years which shows the effect of the application of the book’s ‘guidelines’.

Fathers have been driven from the family and from children’s lives. A culture of fatherless families has become the ‘norm’. Fatherless families outnumber families with fathers. Single parenting is common and increasing; this is largely single mothers in thrall to State’ support’, and control.

Men and fathers are marginalized at best and vilified in pubic policy.

Children without fathers have increased problems and risk in all major aspects of their lives.

Remember the ‘best interests of the children’ and saving them from abuse, neglect and abandonment?

Family Courts create precisely the single-parent homes in which actual abuse and neglect is more likely to occur.

Fathers are forced from their children’s lives and the public is told they have ‘abandoned’ them.

According to the United States’ Department of Health and Human Services , “Children of single parents had a 77% greater risk of being harmed by physical abuse, - by whom, you might ask.

They have an 87% greater risk of being harmed by physical neglect, and an 80% greater risk of suffering serious injury or harm from abuse or neglect. than children living with both parents.”

Again, who is the parent inflicting these serious injuries, abuses and neglect. The father isn’t there. He has been driven out.

Britain’s Family Education Trust reports that children are up to 33 times more likely to be abused in a single-parent home than in an intact family.

Again, the Father is not the one doing it. He has been dispossessed.

The educational achievement of single-parent children is lower, drug use is far higher, pregnancy in teen years is far higher, delinquency is higher. Most prisoners in our jails are from single mother homes. The ills to society mount.

A stolen AND abused generation, justified by 1970’s Marxist ideology.

I finish here. Thank you for listening and please ask your friends to listen too. Send them a link.

I thank my Producer and friend, the Men’s Rights Activist, Christian J for his technical and distribution assistance.

And I also acknowledge the Fathers Rights blogger “Just Another Disenfranchised Father” for the theme and some points.

I dedicate this podcast to my estranged daughter who I miss so very much, and to my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased
Written and spoken by Amfortas.

Ask, Who does the Grail Serve.


Podcasts:

Stolen generation Pt.1.
//soundcloud.com/christian-j/stolen-generation-part-one

(put http: in front)

A professional analysis of the Family Court’s ‘Bible’ that justifies the ‘ least detrimental alternatives’ to the traditional family. “We have a generation of fathers who are shell-shocked, heartbroken”. It was Adolph Hitler who first said that people will take any reduction to their freedom if you tell them it is in the best interests of the children. Could we not have a non-detrimental alternative, Amfortas asks.

Stolen Generation Pt.2.
//soundcloud.com/christian-j/stolen-generation-part-2

(put http: in front)

The Family Court brings about the detrimental conditions that lead to a delinquent culture of fatherlessness in children. The ‘most deserving parent’ is chosen on genitalia. Professionals make judgements that cause parental alienation syndrome. A juggernaut is driven over Magna Carta. An equal society is replaced by a superior class of people.



    By:BigJoe from Vic, Australia on November 22, 2009 @ 8:17 am
    An informative view which I enjoyed listening to. The two 15min mp3 podcast's are well worth a listen. Thanks for the insight Amfortas.

    Anna freud (daughter of Sigmund) although troubled sounds like she had a touch of brilliance. The trouble with genius is it can often be twisted, often not serving the original intent.

    Is there a copy of the book "The Best Interests of the Child – The Least Detrimental Alternative" in PDF/doc format?

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