Its all typical from all my researching and looking……
There are 1000′s of different groups, and unless Im mistaken it seems that they all basically have around the same number of members.
I dont think all the groups can come together as one simply because “each group” or organization has basically all the same members in each one of them.
Ive gathered that no-one gives a crap how we fathers are treated and not enough people will ever unite to do anything about it.
There are lots of Gung Ho people simply not enough to get anyones attention.
I have my Affidavits from our Class Action showing my activity in it so I can only show my little girl when she gets older that I did try to do something about the “FATHERCIDE” that will always be there because no one (but a small number of us) could give a rats ass about the kids or their fathers.
Just my opinion
ssears
Mr. Baskerville,
I know that like me you are fighting the good fight when it comes to changing society for the betterment of our future generations.
I read with interest your recent article regarding the state of ACFC and I must express my opinion (jaded as it might be). My experience with the organization has been less than favorable. While I am slanted toward my son, I also recognize some of the issues that hurt the organization.
Bill runs http://www.billsarena.com, The Internet’s First Divorce Support Site for Kids, by a Kid! He has accomplished more with very little resources than most of the Shared Parenting Advocates I have seen. Bill launched his website on April 9 of 2006 at the age of 14 during the last half of Spring Break in the 8th grade. Since that time he has spoken to 3 legislative committees here in Georgia, been responsible through his lobbying efforts to change at least some of the dynamic of Family Law in Georgia (see the recent passage of HB 369), Successfully Planned, Organized and run one of the Largest Family Law Reform Rally’s in US History, been featured in People Magazine (May 14, 2007), appeared on The Fox Morning Show with Mike and Juliet and is in the process of a feature article being crafted about him in one of the most liberal papers in the US (The Atlanta Journal Constitution). He is currently working on the Georgia Supreme Courts Commission on Marriage and Family Law speaking directly with members of the commission. Yet after repeated attempts at getting even a link at ACFC on thier website to his, he has been ignored.
As you know in our governments operation, they will ignore the voices of 1000 men but the word of a kid is at least heard and Bill by his very nature WILL NOT BE IGNORED. He is currently in the process of working his magic and a second walk for Shared Parenting this next February and his goal is to make it even larger than before. He has done all of this with less than $2000 in the bank and assistance from a few strong supporters of him. It never ceases to amaze me how the Adult Ego stands in the way of accomplishing the primary goal of the organizations and change they wish.
He has done something that very few of us accomplish as adults. He has friends in political power and more importantly has enemies. He speaks from experience and from the heart. As a result of this he commands respect from all of them, especially his peers.
I urge you to consider a tactical allignment with Bill. I am certain that you will find him to truly be a subject matter expert and one who sees all sides of the issue before making a determination as to the course of action.
mruffolo
I have observed in other men’s rights small groups that feminist sympathizers derail movement, they derail progress. For example, a feminist member will say, “It’s not about father’s rights, it’s about non-custodial rightsâ€Â. So the feminist focuses on gender-neutral terminology and solutions that ignore the gendered injustice.
Racism cannot be eliminated if racism is not recognized, as genderism (read: male discrimination) cannot be eliminated, if genderism is not recognized.
Most fathers in American courts, media, and at home are dishonored, lose children, income, property, and liberties. Yet there are also a few women that lose there kids by the courts, however, no women lose eighteen years of income, property, and certain liberties. No women are jailed by government’s family court.
Beware that feminists are also male. Many men worship women. Though they are men, they also see the world as “man bad, woman good”. Yet I understand their condition, as it’s man’s natural instinct to protect and lust for a woman.
The problem with government, media, and academics is that it embraces feminism (read: assumes men are bad, women are good).
In a father’s rights group when a feminist member attempts to solve a feminist problem, the feminist solution does not fix the problem.
Fire the feminist members of the men right’s groups. Father’s rights group ought to be fee of feminist influence. Drive feminists out of the group, and the complaints and impediments will follow.
Do not be a leader or follower of any father’s or men’s group with feminists.
Money
Pre-order a copy of Baskervilles book. Support men’s leaders.
The leadership gift is rare. Find a men’s rights leader and support him.
http://www.firmncp.com Eric
What sad commentaries to an open letter to the ACFC.
It is obvious how pained you must feel to be compelled to write such a poignant letter.
I hear the “too long crap” way to much from those that are supposedly interested in reform.
What I really find is that those that make such facetious comments are either feminazis or others that have personal agendas to make sure that the “fathers movement” remains stagnant.
I feel your pain too, Stephen Baskerville… I can’t imagine having $100,000 a year available to fight the good fight. Heck, if I could have got others to donate $12,000 a year I can picture how much I could/would accomplish…
When I saw the dismal numbers of people showing up for demonstrations, I changed tactics. Some say for the worst. However, I do attract those that ARE INTERESTED IN DOING SOMETHING as opposed to doing the time honored thingy of those in the “movement” to just complain about others as they themselves do absolutely nothing.
I feel your pain and just don’t know what to do to get others off their butts as you seem to be having with the “official” fathers rights group aka ACFC.
I do feel however, that if you were given control of that much money that if anybody could do something about our pitiful situation, you are the person to do it. In fact, if you were given control of the money and could implement your ideas without being saddled down as you have been, I would donate $100 a month to our mutual cause and I would change my will to leave your organization the bulk of my assets to finally make a change.
Well, enough ass kissing, I suppose.
I do hope that this letter that you have so eloquently stated your postion(s) can/will make the difference to get not only the ACFC, but he rest of the groups in forward motion.
Good luck and God bless,
Eric Ericson
college activist
any mens/fathers rights groups who earnestly want a better future for fathers/children…should first seek to raise awareness!!
We need billboards with web adresses on them so men/fathers can educate themselves, and get active!!
There are multitudes of men who are willing to give of their wallets to fund a better future for their children…many just have never heard of any organizations that are doing anything!!
Raise awareness..and reach out to others is the first and last battle!!
mruffolo
college activist I visit your web site. Great job.
David R. Usher
First, I would like to say the ACFC has performed far better than any of its predecessors — and lasted much longer than they did also. There was much corruption in earlier groups, and unmovable “leaders” with clearly conflicting interests who went out of their way to make sure the group was never effective.
As a co-founder of ACFC and its executive secretary, webmaster, and event planner, I enjoyed about five years of progress. With Dianna, we broke into the media in ways that were never before imaginable. We planned and executed the largest protests in the history of the movement. The one place we consistently fell short on was press releases and media involvement. In 2001, we held the Bridges for Children protest in over 225 cities around the world. Since it was not press released, it recieved nothing more than local attention.
We had plateaued. I realized it was time for ACFC to start becoming politically effective. We needed writers to get the message out and to steer the movement into even greater collaborative efforts. ACFC insisted that its only issue is shared parenting, and no other issue could be mentioned or worked — even issues that prevent shared parenting. We could not work this out, so I left ACFC back in 2001.
Since then, ACFC has increased its language scope, and implemented some of the changes I had wanted all along. But the problem of proper media interaction and press releasing continues (other groups such as the DCRally also did not get the message out — so there was no national media coverage of the event). All groups must learn how to put out real press releases on the news wires, and teach local groups how to send press releases to their local media.
I was slightly astonished when Mike McCormick started out his talk at the rally by saying something to the effect that “we are not here to talk about marriage …..”!! Every problem we face is caused by the undermining of marriage. Everything we want goes towards making marriage more attractive and divorce less attractive. To wit: states with shared parenting laws have lower divorce rates. Most of the nation does not give a damn about shared parenting. But many do care about divorce rates. So, marriage is a key issue that every group should be focusing on. It is this focus that recently brought me into working with leadership at Heritage and Family Research Council. And, they like our answers because we can prove they will decrease divorce and improve marriage rates.
Having said all this, I do realize how difficult it is to do so much work with so few people and so little money. That is why it is necessary for the national group to harness the abilities of the hundreds of talented activists — to give them the tools — send them on a mission — and trust them to follow through with it. It takes more than generals to win a war. The generals set the direction, let the lower ranks work out the details, and then the troops go into action and GitRDone.
When ACFC implements a command structure of this sort, and gives its leaders / sub-leaders the authority to act within reasonable parameters, there is no telling what can be accomplished. I do urge ACFC to expand its scope of thinking to permit its leaders to work things from a marriage movement perspective: why limit chapter and affiliate potential to just “divorced men” when there are millions of others just as upset with the system as we are? Shared parenting could still be the primary goal — much more easily won in Oregon by promoting its value in assuring that we don’t unnecessarily throw the baby out with the bathwater in each and every divorce.
We must realize that it takes a combination of advocacy to motivate change. We need people who specialize in pointing out what is wrong with the system in professional manner. We need people raising heck in the streets to demonstrate to politicians that they can’t ignore the problems. And we need people with white hats on who go in the front door with the answers. N.O.W. does this, and we KNOW that it works. There is no reason why ACFC cannot do it (or collaborate with others to form the necessary triptych) too.
On conferences: I have often felt that conferences ended up accomplishing little other than to send everyone home feeling “validated”. If a conference is not about planning or executing a plan of action, there is little reason to hold one.
On press conferences: I have often wondered why we throw a press conference to announce nothing of interest to the media. Press conferences are held when something of great interest to the media or the nation is to be announced. And, to ensure media engagement — some information is press released several times and through various sources to build interest.
I must point out, in all humility, that the problems we are addressing are, collectively, the greatest of our time — both is mass, complexity, and scope. I must say that since 2001 I have seen a spirit of across-the-board cooperation between various organizations — which recently have connected us with religious, veterans, pro-life, anti-ritalin, and other organizations. We have a fabulous opportunity to lead a winning grassroots movement towards reclaiming marriage, while reshaping the gears of government to devote resources towards helping spouses work through the normal problems of marriage and aging, ending “shotgun” divorce, etc.
If we put away our egos and work towards the goal by applying the methods and answers, we will win. I urge all to not focus on what cannot be done, when we know how much can be done if we bring about another electoral landslide in 2008 (or perhaps 2012 if we cannot swing the mainstream in a very short amount of time).
I am a can-do guy. I have always been ahead of conventional wisdom of the movement by months or years. While this has made some folks quite nervous or even very upset — those who have watched my work know that I almost always hit the target. I know we can hit this target if we follow through. Now, its just a question of parking the egos and making it happen.
bombbombbombbomb
There have been plenty of lawsuits – some (both for child support and parental rights) progressed all the way to the USSC, yet where was the ACFC? If there was publicity and men/women in the streets these lawsuits most likely would have been heard – great progress could have been make. But no, the ACFC did nothing.
David R. Usher
ACFC has been involved in litigation. Anybody who followed the Elian Gonzalez case knows the ACFC was intimately involved — filing the Amicus with the USSC that was cited in the decision to return Elian to Cuba. It was purely a parental rights issue. the state of FL had no jurisdiction over the child because A. He did not arrive legally, and B. he had not been in the state for the statutory period of six months. Case closed.
Unfortunately, federal courts have not been friendly to our cases, as anyone who has tried has discovered. They do not want divorce issues heard in the federal courts and always rule them to be “state issues” to avoid the issues. ACFC is not a bottomless pit of money — and so heroic litigation is not in the picture.
bombbombbombbomb
The cases I referred to went to the USSC without any money or support from the ACFC – no money was asked for or needed. All the ACFC had to do was to rally behind them and use them as a media event. Your response “ACFC is not a bottomless pit of money  and so heroic litigation is not in the picture” smacks of exactly what this article was about. AND you still don’t get it.
David R. Usher
The problem is federal legislation and federal funding that drives everything the states are doing wrong. We must change federal law and funding patterns. Asking courts to do it for us is virtually useless. Anyone who wishes to ante up a few million to prove me wrong, please do so. Those who are not willing to fund the legislation have no business complaining that others are smart enough to know better.
David R. Usher
correction to the above: Those who are not willing to fund federal litigation have no business complaining that others are smart enough to know better.
bombbombbombbomb
Again you miss the point. It not about funding any litigation.
Yet you write all about the point I’m trying to make:
“On press conferences: I have often wondered why we throw a press conference to announce nothing of interest to the media. Press conferences are held when something of great interest to the media or the nation is to be announced. And, to ensure media engagement  some information is press released several times and through various sources to build interest.”
Maybe the answer is that because you are “are smart enough to know better.” than to hold a press conference about a case submitted to the USSC seeking parental rights.
“I do realize how difficult it is to do so much work with so few people and so little money. That is why it is necessary for the national group to harness the abilities of the hundreds of talented activists”
Must be you are “are smart enough to know better” not to work with people and harness the abilities of those who did bring these cases to the USSC.
This is Stephen Baskerville’s article and you write:
“I am a can-do guy. I have always been ahead of conventional wisdom of the movement by months or years. While this has made some folks quite nervous or even very upset  those who have watched my work know that I almost always hit the target. I know we can hit this target if we follow through. Now, its just a question of parking the egos and making it happen.”
All I see here is ego – NOT “parking the egos”. Maybe you should take your own advise or at least start your own thread to praise yourself. Contrary to you, I have never seen Stephen Baskerville stoop to such self promotion – he promoted the cause and is a worthy leader.
David R. Usher
As you have done nothing for this movement, you have NO right to criticize those of us who have spent many years hard at work. Confusing experience with ego is not a wise idea.
amfortas
This is horrible. Horrible. Provide a soundly argued piece of critical self-analysis in a public position paper and the urge to fall over defending and justifying positions is inevitable.
This isn’t about ‘being right’. It is about priorities, objectives and strategies, and the need for clear lines of leadership and authority. The needs of the situation demands firmness. This whole counter to Femonazi policies and social destruction is a non-shooting civil war, and wartime measures are needed.
Everyone wants to have a say and frankly the time for simply speaking out and demanding that votes be taken and vetos be brought in is well past by the time an organisation is up and running and runs are already on the board. The drive to be ‘democratic’ and work by committee decision has NEVER WORKED in such a situation.
By all means have differing views. By all means have a number of strategic imperatives. But there is no excuse but cognitive blindness for the sort of infighting that goes on in MRA organisations.
Yes, the family needs support and encouragement and protective legislation.
Yes, no-fault divorce needs to be eradicated.
Yes, the raft of legislation that biases our Courts against men and fathers and boys needs overturning and the passengers dumped in the flood. Drowned, would please me.
Yes, our Institutions of learning need a river diverted through them to wash out the turds who pollute them.
Yes, the public needs educating to get off its fat arse and join us.
All these objectives require different strategies and tactic and weapons. All have a valid call on resources.
A military attitude is needed for command and direction.
But trying to determine things by committees that have power but no accountability is like giving artillery pieces to the cooks. Calling someone a General (or President) without giving that person – the PERSON – power to direct and order and control and sanction, is like promoting the bloody chef. Instead of results you get three hundred servings of friggin’ goulash.
The ACFC is a Theatre Force. Sort out who is to be C in C and who are to be specific force generals. Top down policies from the C in C. Strategic plans from the Generals. Tactical operations from Colonels. get it?
No committees. You need Project teams and force-muliplier Battle goups.
What we don’t need is General Patton, General Eisenhower, General Montgomery and General whosobloodyeverbigego, all argueing infront of the ranks.
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
It’s truly sad to see Steve’s letter appear on MND. Unfortunately it is ultimate truth and putting one person in charge as president, with full authority to make all decisions may be the best way to revive ACFC. For my vote, Steve is the person to lead and call the shots.
One far less qualified man lead ACFC’s predecessor to an annual budget of close to $100,000 a year buy developing a personal relationship with Dr. Laura. I witnessed days when Dr. Laura mentioned the organization, of income of $8,000 or more a day in the early 90’s and the very people that started ACFC destroyed that organization in an effort to take control of the financial resources established by ONE determined, poorly educated, but ethical and humble man.
Male egos and the very actions so aptly described by Ush above are at the heart of the problem. As Ush says, I have the answers and if you won’t follow me, I’ll take my marbles and go home and blow my own horn. I know what is best and have no intention of subordinating my way to anyone.
Ush has no intention of supporting a parental rights case to the US Supreme court because that is not what he thinks will do any good. The man that BELIEVES that a landmark Supreme Court decision will change things may well be correct. It’s not a million dollar legal case, and former legal counsel for CRC is competent and would be willing to argue the case before the Supreme Court. This but one approach and the man that believes in it should be encouraged regardless of what Ush thinks he knows.
To maintain some humility I keep as sign that reads: Those of you who THINK you KNOW IT ALL, Are particularly annoying to those of us who DO!!!
Ush believes in selling marriage as a palatable politically correct solution and he too may be correct and deserves encouragement and support. My point is that instead of butting heads some form of mutual respect for varying views must be established and one well educated and articulate person like Steve should be permitted the discretion to call the shots.
If marriage is largely history due to refusal of men or women to subordinate to the other, then how do we expect a dozen or so men to agree on anything? Imagine a NFL football team playing without a coach or with no one in charge. It would be a few tons of testosterone laden males doing their own thing with exactly the progress that Steve describes.
One other alternative exist and that was aptly posted as a comment under Ush’s State of the Fatherhood Movement post. It was an essay entitled The Virtues of a Disorganized Resistance by Stephen DeVoy. I’ll repost it for consideration here with thanks to who ever made the original comment.
The Virtues of a Disorganized Resistance
Stephen DeVoy
American opposition movements have always focused on the notion of organization. It has always been their goal to organize the people. Their hope has been to wield the collective power of the disaffected, downtrodden, and exploited as a single unit against the concentrated power of the ruling class. While their hope has been noble, their methods have been foolish. Organized resistance has many drawbacks. These drawbacks have seldom been discussed by the opposition. We believe that the only effective resistance is a completely disorganized, decentralized, and leaderless opposition.
While, on the face of it, this claim may impress you as absurd. Of course it seems absurd! It is counterintuitive. Never the less, it is the ONLY method of resistance that will work within American society. We will explain why organized resistance has never worked in the United States. In addition, we will promulgate a new formula for effective resistance.
Why has organized resistance failed in the United States?
There are many reasons for the failure of organized resistance. The two primary causes of failure are intimately connected to the culture of the United States and the political system laid down by our nation’s founding fathers.
The Cultural Cause
Americans, culturally, are anarchists. Few Americans realize this. Most Americans have a false understanding of the term “anarchism.” However, upon examining the beliefs of your average American, you will find that most Americans: do not trust leaders, do not trust government, wish to be left alone, value their privacy, think of themselves as independent from society, do not believe that there is a systemic solution to their problems, believe that others should be free to do what they choose, provided they do so in private and do not harm others
While it is undeniable that political culture in the United States often speaks to the opposite of the above list, it is also undeniable that most Americans register as neither Democrat or Republican and most Americans do not vote. Thus, despite the political culture, most Americans choose not to participate in it. This is not only due to their belief that the American political system is hopeless, but also is due to the cultural clash between the wider culture and the political culture.
Any attempt to organize large numbers of Americans into a single political movement will fail. Any attempt to create an organization led by a strong group of leaders will fail. Americans reject submersion into the collective. In a sense, Americans are anti-collectivists.
The Political Cause
American political culture is not ideological. Politicians attempt to draw ideological distinctions between the two major parties, but these distinctions are a matter of splitting hairs. The only significant difference between the two political parties is the degree of compassion represented by the rhetoric of the two parties. Compassion is not a political concept. Compassion is an attitude. Thus, the two parties differ, primarily, in attitude and not ideology.
Despite this, there remain two political parties. One is prompted to ask “why?” If each party is basically the same, with respect to ideology, why do they not merge into one party? The answer to this question is best found in viewing each political party according to its true nature. American political parties are, for all intents and purposes, organized crime units. American political parties have more in common with the Mafia than they have with their counterparts in more democratic societies. Like Mafia, each political party competes for control of territory in order to maximize the benefit to their business constituency. Like Mafia, the political parties attempt to mold the system to maintain their positions and access to resources. Like Mafia, the political parties force the average citizen to pay “protection” under the threat of violence (taxes). Like Mafia each political party uses the “protection” money collected for its own advantage.
By defining our political system in terms of the “majority” and the “opposition,” our Constitution enshrines this two mafia system into law. Each Mafia passes laws to exclude new comers from the game while focusing the rest of its energy in destroying the other Mafia.
Thus, any resistance movement that chooses to become an organization is in competition with these Mafiosi. The deck is stacked and the power of the state, wielded by these organized crime units known as the Democratic and Republican parties, will waste the time and resources of any newcomer. A newcomer can only succeed by rejecting the political system, draining its resources, and undermining the rule of the state.
How is disorganized resistance superior?
Reason No. 1:
In some societies, dissidents become heroes. In American society dissidents are systematically slandered, libeled, harassed, and villainized. If they become successful, they are murdered (e.g. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X). In the American experience, movements that look to leaders are decapitated. Leaders are a liability, not an asset. Organizations can be (and are) infiltrated. Organizations can be taxed. Organizations have legal responsibility. Organizations have membership lists and lists are wonderful tools for the oppressor. Organizations take on a life of their own. They struggle to exist and their continued existence takes priority over their mission. Organizations attract opportunists, power mongers, and attention seekers. Organizations tend to exploit their rank and file for the benefit of their inner circle. Disorganizations share none of these defects.
Reason No. 2:
Bureaucracy cannot comprehend disorganization. Disorganization is invisible. The asymmetry of the relationship between organization and disorganization favors disorganization. Organization depends upon planning. Planning requires predictability. Disorganization cannot be predicted. This leaves organization at a disadvantage.
Reason No. 3:
Organization requires a supply chain. Supply chains can be disrupted. Disorganization depends only upon the resources of its members. Supply chains that do not exist cannot be eliminated.
Reason No. 4:
Disorganized movements rely upon swarming. Swarms are difficult to defend against. If you cut a swarm in half, you have two swarms. If you eliminate one of the resulting swarms, you still have a swarm. Disorganization breeds. Organization grows. The many and dispersed are a more difficult target than the large and concentrated.
Reason No. 5:
Organizations takes their steps by design. If the design is flawed, the organization fails. Disorganization relies not upon design but upon evolution. The motivating notions of disorganization are memes. Memes evolve and memes compete. This process improves the motivating notions of disorganization. This process produces multiple courses of action. While some may fail, others are likely to succeed. Taken as a whole, disorganization is more likely to succeed.
Reason No. 6:
The important thing to remember is that it is easier to destroy than to create that which is designed. Thus, the cost to those who lose the manifestation of their design outweighs by leaps and bounds the cost it takes to destroy it. That which evolves is cheap and when an effort is created to destroy the evolved entity, it merely mutates and evolves again, adjusting to the new conditions. As a process that fosters evolution, a movement based on disorganization will continue to survive, evolve, and expand without cost. The resource constraints placed upon the designed (e.g. government and corporate) and those absent from the evolved (a decentralized and disorganized opposition movement), favor the later.
The limits of disorganization
We do not propose a complete absence of organization. Instead we propose a disorganization of units. Units can be as small as a single individual, or as complex as cell of individuals working together. Cells may be internally organized, but they should not be statically organized cell to cell. The movement should have no commander. It should have no central committee or governing body. No global plans should be made. The modus operandi of each unit should be to think globally and act locally. Ideas, strategies, and tactics should float freely and compete as memes within the medium of the collective conscious.
Conclusions
We need to construct a disorganized movement. You need not apply to join. In fact, it might be better if you did not contact anyone except those with whom you wish to form a unit. Your ideas, strategies, tactics, and lessons learned should be spread anonymously or by word of mouth. When you act, should you decide to act in resistance, attribute your actions to “the Resistance.” The growing din of disorganized disruption will be felt as an earthquake. There will be trembles. There will be pre-shocks. The tension will mount and, in time, there will be an earthquake. When that earthquake strikes, the organized edifice of the oppressor will fall like a house of cards.
college activist
While most are chasing windmills with toothbrushes…
The Dukes of durham are giving the the feminist klan of Durham a choice!!
30 million dollars, and a state appointed omnibudsman to look after over zealous Feminist Klan pandering attorneys or……. a civil rights lawsuit!!
college activist
Universities that indoctrinate klan hysteria into our students should be next!! We need to start to make anti-male hysteria very expensive!!
http://www.exiledfathers.org markyoung12
Dear Stephen, here’s one to add to your list of complaints:
Every Fathers day for the past few years I’ve asked ACFC to message it’s members about the Fathers Day Demonstration at the U.S. Capitol. Only in 2006 did it do so but only about a week prior. Yet, ACFC is headquartered in D.C., the very location from which fathers’ legal persecution problems originate.
These facts blow my mind.
I believe the Fathers Day Demonstration has great potential. Even though it’s been a small turnout each year, hundreds or thousands of tourists and visitors to the Capitol (of family destruction) view our large banners. This year we held an open mike to video record anyone with a serious story to tell: a video petition for redress of grievances. The quality of the few, if not many, videos is very good. http://www.exiledfathers.org/#FATHERSDAY2007
A few of the videos from Family Preservation Day at the Lincoln Memorial are uploaded to YouTube: http://youtube.com/user/markyoung12. I’d have them all uploaded if I had the time and resources.
Suggestions:
1. Recognize that we already have a gobal organization called the Internet, and that quotes above from The Virtues of a Disorganized Resistance, by Stephen DeVoy are exactly right.
2. Less words, more pictures and videos. Get a camcorder, record other victims in your area to document crimes against humanity/families by “family” courts, learn the technology to upload videos. It’s simple. We need to flood the Net with stories of victims. This is why the First Amendment is First. The Declaration of Independence was a list of complaints against their king George.
3. Go out in your neighborhood to high pedestrian traffic areas and hand out fact sheets about the divorce industry, with your camcorder, if you have one. You will likely meet victims. Record their stories.
4. Less talk about marriage and fault v. no-fault, more talk about family. Government should have nothing to do with marriage, in my view. We need a new paradigm in this regard. Enforcement of the right to be a parent is the only hope for the institution family. http://www.exiledfathers.org/no_fault_is_not_the_problem.rtf
adryenn
Stephen,
You have nailed it on the head. When I met with everyone in Detroit in 2005, I had serious questions about what ACFC was doing directly for families.
I can tell you exactly what needs to happen:
1. One outside organization needs to focus itself on legislative issues (i.e. the California Alliance for Families and Children, which has an excellent reputation in this area) and should be supported by ACFC financially (as we promised in 2005 and never materialized). For that I am most disappointed.
2. ACFC should focus on the court of public opinion, and be the clearning house for information about the local organizations around the country that are making the best movement forward, where a NCP and their family can meet people near them who share their same struggles.
3. All political infighting must cease. If you or any organization with similar goals is to survive, you must model the NOW organization. There may be cat fights, but there is never targeted missles fired at a sister organization in order to steal their members. You must think Joint Venture not Dictatorship.
4. The ACFC Website needs to be a one stop shop to find anything related to NCP issues, clearly laid out, easy in easy out, and allow people to have the information without having to be a member. ie, move the Free Line.
5. ACFC must distance themselves from the radicals. This will be the key factor. While NOW has allowed the radicals to take over policy, that will ultimately be their downfall. So, make a list of objectives, and stick to them. You are never going to get rid of divorce all together. Instead, push for the idea that couples can enter into covenent marriages where they both agree not to use “irreconcilable difference” to divorce. Or push for madatory prenups (which lower the divorce rate to 4%) and refer to it like I do, as the long form of your marriage vows.
6. ACFC must come up with a marketing and publicity plan that will promote the ideals of an intact family, and fairness for non-intact families, rather than merely being reactionary. Promoting the good works of their members, their successes is mandatory. If you’re not supporting them, then there is an “agenda” working below the surface that has not been publicized.
7. ACFC doesn’t need an office. At least not that kind of office. When you are percieved as already being well funded, people will look elsewhere. ACFC appears to be rolling in dough and not doing a thing to make life easier for NCPs and their families. That looks worse than bad, it looks greedy and like just another bureacracy that doesn’t give a hoot about OUR kids.
8. ACFC should develop an education plan that starts at kindergarten that helps boys develop into responsible men. Go ahead and co-op their word. Stop looking at it like a pejoritive and use it for the powerful message you can send with it. Start young, teach them respect, good strong morals, like the 13 pilars they teach at my neighbors son’s school. Those values used to be communicated in the church, then the church lost power, then the schools stopped, so now, there is nobody teaching strong values. Develop a program for both girls and boys and you’ll be a winner.
9. Speaking of education, why doesn’t ACFC has an education plan for NCPs like ACES so that they know their rights and have access to real information? One thing that impresses me about ACES is that they are about education and empowerment. They have actually leaned on the child support agency for an NCP when the child support agency was doing their usual illegal stuff. So why not have an arm of ACFC dedicated to creating a handbook for each state about what is and isn’t allowed, rights and responsibilities of each parent, and the never told information about how the court works and is funded? These flyers or postcards could be handed out at court and people could download a pdf for free. The idea is that an informed NCP is a powerful NCP. The radical womens groups have kept NCPs down using financial domination. Once they take all the money, there is no money to hire an attorney to fight the custody battle. So you have a grieving NCP who is most likely suffering some for of PTSD who has to speak for himself (yeah right) and loses. That’s a perpetual cycle. So inform them early on and you’ll see a shift in the tide.
To be honest, right now ACFC comes across to me, and many onlookers like an organization that was set up by the womens groups to keep the men from succeeding. Have an organization, make the men believe this organization will do it for them, and then they won’t be any trouble. Of course, you have to have a President that is brilliant and really wants change. Stephen is perfect. I think he’s been a pawn in all this. You cannot have a president with no power. No organization will work that way.
There is another way to do this you know. Check out eWomenNetwork.com and look how they do it. Territories, like franchises, so the local leaders make money. You want enthusiasm, infuse a little entrepreneurialism into the mix.
Really the only person I know in ACFC who has made an impact on me was Stephen. He’s beyond brilliant. There have been great local leaders in Michigan who are doing great work, but I don’t see that as a reflexion of ACFC. They are their own organization and they are working.
So, let Stephen lead. Let him make decisions. Stop working by committee and use the battle group decription above (that was brilliant). Give up the office and hire a web support group offshore (its cheap and effective). Use Web 2.0 technology to allow your userbase to contribute content and make your site more dynamic. Then start the media machine. I can’t believe you guys dropped Jane. She’s brilliant. That was a stupid move. Don’t make more of those.
As for Angelo Lobo’s film, set up screenings across the country. At least 100 to start. They can be in living rooms, use bravenewfilms to set it up for free, just like the Walmart movie was done. The idea is to get it screened. I’ll commit to renting the Rafael Theatre (where the Mill Valley Film Festival screens) where I have personally shown my own films. And I’ll publicize it. Will that motivate others to do the same? Who knows, but it’s a start!
-Adryenn Ashley
http://www.krightsradio.com richar
And The Truth Continues…
Today Saturday, September 8th, Truth was brought to us all.
It is seldom that people or organizations must be opened up for public review. But that time in the history of our movement has come.
We must look very seriously at the issues brought to us concerning the ACFC by Stephen Baskerville. I for one consider Stephen Baskerville a dear friend. Before I started Krights Radio my respect for him was established and firmly rooted one word at a time as I grew in the work of his writings. I know Stephen to be an honest man with all our best interests at heart. A man strong in determination seeking a unity to succeed in the battle we find ourselves soldiers.
I have known of deep problems within the ACFC through a personal experience with Mike McCormick over 8 years ago. Then after a “lets give it another shot” meeting, Krights experienced continual problems, betrayal, and insults from Mike. I became one of the ACFC’s critics.
Based on my past experiences with the ACFC and Mike McCormick I was very concerned for Stephen when he accepted the position as President of the ACFC. I had suspicions
Stephen would be relegated to simply a figure head position. It seems this has now come to pass.
So what do we do? We have an organization which has appointed itself the leader
of us all. An organization which in 10 years has taken dues from us, manufactured an impression of the authority to make changes, but has produced no tangible results. An organization which has become a quasi-bureaucracy much like the very ones we fight.
I was once told by Mike McCormick, “The ACFC had a seat at the table.” My question to him was, “So you throw all the rest of us the scraps?” We must ask ourselves. Could our issues have been solved years ago? But did the job of the ACFC become one to assure a few select people within the organization had employment and benefits while good American Father’s and Their Children suffer under the, “Do nothing attitude of a self proclaimed leader?”
Much like Krights, we reached a point where it was required for us to refit, retool, and remodel. It came at the three year mark. Ten years is a long time in this quickly evolving movement to maintain the same procedures and operating habits.
Are we better today than we were 10 years ago? Evidence shows we are not. Maybe it is time to give out a golden watch, say a respectful thank you, and move on.
I for one Support Stephen Baskerville. Know it or not He is a part of each of us.
harry
IMHO, MRAs should read the The Virtues of a Disorganized Resistance
by Stephen DeVoy OFTEN!
My name is Bob Van Ee, I am logged in as WESTmichiganDAD. I have written to the ACFC Board recommending that ACFC continue to: [1] Lead the Father’s Rights Movement, [2] to champion Fatherhood, [3] call for all Fathers to engage with their children, and, [4] if some aspects of Fathering are felt to fall outside of ACFC’s scope to explore partnerships with others, perhaps NFI and NCOF, and, not fall into the Family Preservation frenzy.
I must agree with Mr. Selberg that disorganized or decentric organization may be highly appropriate at the grass roots level while ACFC leads.
I personally know Dr. Baskerville to be a champion of Fathers and have seen his contributions to efforts with very little or no credit for his effort.
I have also offered to collaborate with the ACFC Board on funding issues that may be unexamined.
As a movement we may be at a minor junction, we have read about Rally, we are probably aware of UCRCoA, we have heard some say “this is not about marriage†while others chose to champion CPS, Family Preservation, Adoption and Foster Care Reform over Father’s and Children’s Rights.
In Flint, Michigan on Labor Day weekend, I had opportunity to discuss, with a Big Brothers Big Sisters VP, the difficulty getting Dads to Father. I met with a similar community group in the City of Grand Rapids yesterday to hear the same concerns.
While we ask for change, we seem not to work to solve that portion which me might do on our own.
Without a doubt there are individuals who have worked at this for decades, we all know the names: are we tired, have we lost focus, did we fall out of the loop?
I have heard or read some blame everything upon “the government†with no mention of DRA 2005. In Michigan, while MI HB 4564 sits in committee, many activists devote their energy to the unified family preservation computer controlled project: MI HB 4564 may be in danger of lapsing into oblivion. There may be a new effort, in Michigan, to work to institute DNA Paternity establishment, again the response is apathetic while many are unaware of SCAO 2005 Father Friendly initiatives.
Dr. Warren Farrell and others are at work, at Wikipedia defending Men’s and Father’s Rights issues against feminist editors while most others are busy with self promotion.
I am a NCP Dad with both a twenty two year old son and a seven year old son. The relationship with my oldest is damaged, his mother kept him away from me, hidden in another county, despite Contempt of Court findings. My seven year old’s Mother threatens to do the same hiding thing to my youngest son repeatedly. I spent tens of thousands of dollars in Court trying to Father my oldest son. Some Dads are offended that I have my youngest with me frequently (six nights to only two or three per week, but never more than two nights apart). Unlike my adversarial approach with my oldest son’s mother I adopt an open arm posture in the face of my youngest son’s mother, it is I that the school calls when he is not there.
It is time to re-examine Father’s Rights, those who would detract us, what some best practices are, what we have accomplished, where resources are, and where we need to go. Some times perhaps we feel educated on a subject and fall into a routine, we do it with our parents as we face redundant themes, we do it with our children, our ex’s our girlfriends or our wives as we incur redundant themes, something new comes along and we jump without thought or fail to act at all because we have an established routine. There may be a reason Professionals are required to seek continuing education, each of us might consider that worthwhile as Fathers as well.
Strong Fathers are patient, committed, and, consistent. Strong Fathers build relationships with other Fathers. Shoulder to shoulder may we Men and Fathers work with the ACFC Board, true hero Baskerville, and each other to consider our children’s future.
thedarkEPK
Please be patient with me as I tell a short true story:
My second political memory is watching television as MLK delivered his I Have A Dream Speech. The event was greeted as a special moment in my home where my parents were raising their children to see racial prejudice for what it was: first, stupid; second, unconstitutional anytime it was used to attempt to justify treating citizens differently.
We were a military family. At the time we lived on the west coast but, like all military families, we moved around a lot. So far, however, we’d always moved to west coast or northern states. That changed in 1969. That’s when we got the news that our dad’s next duty station would take us to the heart of darkest Alabama. Well, you can imagine the thoughts going through the head of a 14 year old properly raised young man. Having seen idiots like Bull Connor unleash state powered hoses and dogs against people who were innocent of all wrongdoing, I expected to see lynchings every other night. I expected to see bloodshot-eyed good ol’ boys hanging out on every street corner looking for folks that didn’t “know their place”. I expected to see anything but what I actually saw.
What I actually saw was the overwhelming number of southerners, as individuals, rather offhandedly claiming that they personally weren’t prejudiced … that they had black people as good friends … and that they disapproved of political inequality. I didn’t trust that they were being honest until I finally ran into a few honest-to-John bigots who had no trouble whatsoever openly and vigorously expressing their stupidity. Then I knew that it wasn’t some early form of Political Correctness that kept most southerners from expressing their “true” feelings – because they really were expressing their true feelings. Most southerners were not bigots.
THAT’S when it first dawned on me that the real problem was much more subtle and difficult than bigotry. How was it possible to have the south’s horrible race problems in an environment where, regardless of how white people might feel about black people as a social group, most white people thought it was wrong to treat black-people-as-individuals differently than white-people-as-individuals? The answer, as I eventually discovered, had a lot more to do with cheap political demagoguery and Mayor Bubba wanting to maintain a job for his no account cousin Cletus as Poll Tax taker than it did with any of the logical, legal, or moral questions that could be posed about the regime.
We should be mindful of what those days can teach us about ours. One of the things they should teach us is about practical politics. We will never eliminate egos or ambitions or low motives. The civil rights era coped with those. So did the American Founders (read The Federalist No. 6 for a look at what our Founders understood about political egos, ambitions, and low motives). In both those cases, what they accomplished was setting aside over-sensitivity about the negatives of their fellow-travelers in the interest of combining the positive effects that all of them, in aggregate, could bring together.
We need to do learn from those who have gone before us and accomplished great ends. All of us recognize that the crisis we face is one of the most dangerous ever to visit our nation. All of us recognize that our future as a nation of Liberty really does hang in the balance. All of us recognize that if we fail then the sufferings that we, personally, have endured (as awful as they have been) will be dwarfed by what we’ll hand on to our sons and daughters. They will face titanic, perhaps insurmountable, difficulties…
… because we failed.
Personally, I admire Stephen’s and David’s scholarship, while not agreeing in every detail with either of them. But – and here’s the crux – agree or disagree with Stephen or David or anyone else, what we need to recognize is that they’re not going away; nor is anyone else who has devoted years of his or her life to this cause. What that means in practical terms is that we’re all in this together. We’re stuck with each other and we need to do our best to try to find ways to work together – despite how far from ideal each of us is as an individual.
It’ll be hard work, it’ll be unpleasant, it’ll make us have to become bigger people, but we all know it’s been done before. If they did it, so can we. We truly must “all hang together or …”
As you have done nothing for this movement, you have NO right to criticize those of us who have spent many years hard at work. Confusing experience with ego is not a wise idea.”
Again ego. It seems that only you “give people the right” to comment/criticize. Makes people want to join the ranks – “don’t comment or criticize, because you are not experienced as me!” Are the men/women standing in line to shut up?
I was a board member, officer, and financial backer of a very well known rights organization for many years. You would know it well should I reveal its name, We were directly involved in the creation and support of your organization. However, I do not need my ego stroked and wear my accomplishments on my sleeve. We closed down the organization after more than 10 years and my partner has not been active in over a year. He will no longer support or be involved in this so-called movement because of the qualities that you demonstrate here. I’m now gone as well, not just from this forum, but any mens activism. This is exactly why this “movement” is doomed to failure. Leadership unites people to achieve, Not drive them away. Over that last few weeks many people have been driven from MND – add me to the growing list. Maybe with all those who are accused of doing nothing for this movement are purged – you can accomplish YOUR goals.
Final thought, if we choose to abandon Fathers and instead promote Family Preservation does that put us in conflict with marriage savers and promise keepers? Of course we could simply collaborate at times. What is the Y chromosome?
-Bob
http://www.loveisearned.com brilovett
[David R. Usher said...] “Unfortunately, federal courts have not been friendly to our cases, as anyone who has tried has discovered. They do not want divorce issues heard in the federal courts and always rule them to be “state issues” to avoid the issues. ACFC is not a bottomless pit of money  and so heroic litigation is not in the picture.â€Â
[David R. Usher said...] “Asking courts to do it for us is virtually useless. Anyone who wishes to ante up a few million to prove me wrong, please do so.â€Â
I don’t disagree that the court system is useless as they are all openly corrupt, purely political, and completely arbitrary. However, though it isn’t entirely correct to claim that the U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear divorce issues (e.g., Orr v. Orr), unless you’re talking about buying off judges, it doesn’t take much money at all to get to the U.S. Supreme Court with unbeatable arguments. My case is currently at the U.S. Supreme Court (http://www.loveisearned.com/html/Status.htm) and required no attorney involvement whatsoever. Though there’s no question in my mind that they will deny cert (for the reasons in my opening sentence), it’s certainly not because the case isn’t morally or legally spot on, or that I didn’t follow a proper court procedure. Point being: money isn’t an issue to get to the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s “easy.”
Though many attack Fathers-4-Justice methods, there can be no doubt that they drove mass appeal and involvement in their efforts (at least while they were occurring). Their methods have been the most successful to-date making the public aware of the issues and gathering public support. It’s clear conventional war tactics won’t work here – what colonial history seems to suggest as more effective is a guerrilla war (e.g., see Conceived in Liberty by Murray Rothbard). From my research, a guerrilla war has two primary pieces: small, but many quick wins and… massive public support.
As I mentioned in an article about F4J (http://www.loveisearned.com/html/Fathers-4-Justice%20-%20Would%20Ayn%20Rand%20approve.htm), Ayn Rand opined in 1965 that “[p]olitically, mass civil disobedience is appropriate only as a prelude to civil war – as the declaration of a total break with a country’s political institutions.†At this point, it is my belief that massive civil disobedience is the last opportunity before the “unthinkable.â€Â
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
#20 bombbombbombbomb said, “Over that last few weeks many people have been driven from MND”
Nonsense. I have never “driven” anyone from MND. I don’t even have the power to do that. If you have abandoned the Movement or walked away from MND, you did that all on your own. Please take responsibility for your own ennui.
http://www.AKidsRight.Org/ john.murtari
I read Steve’s remarks and admire him for speaking out on perceived serious problems. That is certainly his duty as President of an organization. I especially
commend him for avoid ‘nasty’ comments and refraining from demeaning others
within the group. We could all learn from that!
ncdad
There are no cohesive organizations making any headway because most organizations are managed by part time people who have jobs to keep and bills to pay and cannot dedicate the time needed to really drive forward.
All organizations face funding issues as well. Although, there are many diehard activist who even when dead broke, fight daily for changes. They live on “Hope” alone.
There needs to a a real leader who can step up to the plate and establish an agenda that attacks the Divorce Industry and the ABA. They have created another “State Of The Child” as Hitler once did. We must educate the general public and yes, this takes funding but, how can people fund an organization when the Divorce Industry makes sure we are left broke? Inovative approaches to finding fnding osurces are required. Look to those industries that the Divorce Industries hurt the most:
Banking – Divorce causes many Bankruptcies
Employers – Employee lost time and sometimes loss of employee to incarceration or suicide.
Insurance Industry – Just how many men of divorce end up dead in fatal car accidents within a year or two fo a divorce? You might be surprised.
Sending the right message to the write places can get funding if you sell it to them right.
Also, the media does not want to do anything against the Divorce Industry which includes Judges and Lawyers. The ABA controls our country and they know it. The media will act on events concernng children and women but not fathers. All actions must be “For The Good Of The Child” and then everything else will fall in place for men and children.
Attack the problem as a problem for children and familes not men or women and you will make progress and get more funding, more media attention and more results.
The above suggestion for using funding for Billboards is one of the best ways to get the message out to the public but, the billboard message really needs to hit home with the American Public. A billboard message that makes people think and want to know more. Billboards that will prevent people from hiring divorce lawyers would do well in hitting the industry where it hurts most. In their wallets! Billboards about how our nation was built on Family Values but how the divorce industry now destroys the very familes that are this nations foundation.
There needs to be one organization which is child centric, is very well funded and has a dedicated staff of media savy people to start drving the right messages across America and then change will be possible.
Also, there are two bills pending in the U.S. House And Senate that all organizations should attack with as much ight as possible:
Senate Bill S.803.IS and House Bill H.R.1386.IH
These Bills reinstate the funding of the State Child Support incentives which the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 did away with. There are numerous sponsors and cosponsors of these bills and those that either sponsored or cosponsors the bills should be targeted at election time as child abusers who promote the divorce industry and the destruction of families.
MensIssuesObserver
Stephen,
It had to be a real life-defining moment to decide to go public in uncharted direction to force ACF&C in a new direction or salute as it goes under. That you took the time to produce a well written and convincing letter validates comments you are the right person leading the ACF&C.
I can only sympathize with you having to deal with one fraction demanding a very limited focus and another fraction demanding a general, all-encompassing top-down “Men are Good!†focus. Having a Board that demands micro-managing the association indicates a Board that does not understand their core responsibilities. This does not bode well for the ACF&C or you.
I worked for a major vehicle manufacturer that you would recognize. One day in a fit, the President of the company shut down the assembly line and ordered everyone on the premises into the cafeteria (we didn’t all fit). He had one message and he wanted it heard: When he asked for something, that’s exactly what he wanted and he wanted it NOW. If he asked for a bolt to be torqued to a particular value, he did NOT want to hear they didn’t have a torque wrench. He wanted to see a P.O. on his desk for a torque wrench within 30 minutes if that is what it took to get the job done. It took about 10 minutes for him to make his point, after which everyone was ordered back to work.
I do not know if this would qualify as good business leadership, but it sure worked for good business management. It sounds like the ACF&C could stand a healthy dose of business management.
A comment as to the direction of the ACF&C: An overall ACF&C structure for the common things, like the website, conferences, press releases, with focus groups set up for the worst offenders. Fractions may want to war over the categories, but if these “Dirty 13†were given a 2-year renewable charter, I’m convinced each would have the sufficient focus to make a lot of ground in their assigned sector in a hurry: Advertising, Child Custody, Child Support, Crime & Punishment, Divorce, Domestic Violence & Abuse, Education, Employment, Legal System & Family Law, Legislation & Government Agencies, Marriage & Family, Paternity Fraud, and Sports.
Everyone should be able to find a home with the ACF&C. This may achieve that.
Jim Peterson
What I see wrong with the MRM is the failure so far to hang together with other men and the deep desire to, therefore, hang separately. Obviously, if ACFC got to a point where they could not talk about other men’s rights issues (including other father’s rights issues), even when talking about them would prove misandry is a problem…then they were doomed to failure.
This is beginning to change.
Leaders like Dave Usher, Marc Rudov and Glenn Sacks have noticed that any major form of misandry in the USA needs to be exposed in order to prove to everyone who listens that there is an overarching “problem” whose symptoms rain down on the concept of “shared parenting” along with a dozen other major concepts.
If one attacks misandry on a broad front, one can make the public more aware that there really is a misandry problem to begin with.
Think of issues like ants. One ant will get eaten by the anteater. But 1000 ants can carry the anteater over the cliff. So the trick is to find 1000 instances of anti-male bias and use all of them to destroy feminism in the US, preferably with a number of parallel Pro Se challenges in the federal courts claiming, for instance, that domestic violence is a matter for states to decide and not something for the federal government, while also claiming that men do actually have Constitutional rights on the federal level.
I see a new “cause†develop every day. Just today it turned out that the missing British girl “Madeleine†was not carried off by a middle aged white male as the parents had suggested…the child was probably killed by the parents themselves who figured they could easily finger a middle aged white male.
We have 5 Conservative Supreme Court justices who will support us if we can only convince them that it is FEMINISM and MISANDRY that we are fighting and not something that conservative judges might find boring like “shared parentingâ€Â. If faced with a valid “misandry and feminism has gone too far†case, these 5 justices can, in one fell swoop, overrule hundreds of anti-male judges below them. We just need a case go get to them via a conduit of a pro-male judge that we find at the district level by not paying lawyers too much money to launch just one or two cases…but instead to have a dozen men launch pro se (lawyerless) challenges as probes to find the right judge.
Believe me, the enemy goes “judge shopping†in this manner.
Now how does one go about expanding the MRM to have a broader message that cannot be ignored as a whole? Well, we are doing that right here at MND.
Last Christmas I decided that the small group of men and women fighting the IMBRA law (forced background checks for men wishing to say hello to a foreign woman online) were NOT going to get a big movement going without allying with other groups. The reason was because only 0.4% of Americans socialize with foreigners and people were too dumb to see that, if IMBRA is upheld in the courts, the actions of American males on all social websites will be regulated within a few years.
I decided to talk on the phone with Dave Usher on and off for about six weeks.
Dave understood that divorced men not only had the issues of dealing with feminist ex-wives in terms of parenting and financial bondage…these men, and never-married men, needed to keep the available options of being able to find OTHER WIVES who might be more appropriate…without feminists daring to actually BLOCK THE ATTEMPTS of these men to find other wives.
He saw the IMBRA law as being integrally tied with the father’s rights movement in that divorced fathers were being prevented from remarrying…which would take money out of the reach of the greedy ex-wife’s lawyers. Usher saw IMBRA and VAWA as part and parcel the same thing: the US Congress was vindictively passing laws to keep men from the pursuit of happiness.
But I instinctively knew that Dave was getting some resistance from his peers at http://www.mediaradar.org as to whether to come out with a public opinion on IMBRA, presumably because the father’s rights movement could be “ridiculed” by being associated with so-called “losers who seek mail order brides”.
I remember feeling “Men are their own worst enemies. They allow themselves to be divided and conquered by feminists who create stigmas on various and supposed subgroups of men and cause them to repel each other the way nerds in high school often ignore each other”.
But Dave was on our side and finally came through with the following article that was prominently displayed on the MediaRadar website:
With the above, widely published article, Dave Usher had broken a barrier and made history by expanding the concept of what a men’s rights group should be standing up for and against.
With this one article, Dave Usher also noted that DIVORCED DADS HAVE THE RIGHT to find a better wife in any way they want and to start anew, preferably with their kids enjoying a great new mom.
After speaking with Dave Usher, I concentrated on convincing Glenn Sacks that IMBRA was about as anti-male as any law the US Congress had ever passed and directly related to the pain that a divorced man goes through. Glenn had been concentrating on the child custody issues and it took some convincing, but then he decided to post an Online Dating Rights advertisement on every newsletter he sends out and he wrote several articles, one of which is at this link:
Then I looked at the NoNonsenseman, Marc Rudov, who was starting to appear weekly on Fox News condemning feminists for being hypocrites and needing laws to tilt the balance of power in their favor in a zero sum game with men. I talked to Marc on the phone for hours. Finally he realized that IMBRA was a major men’s rights issue and he published the following:
Now Marc Rudov has expanded into being on CNN where he just attacked the State of Virginia’s anti-male billboard campaign against men who hold hands with their children.
Note how he does well on Television even on the minor subject of whether women should pay for dinner:
My point is that the only really effective Men’s Rights organization is going to have at least as broad as agenda as the NOW. We need to get millions of men interested, even if we have to get the pro-porn men on our side against the feminists and evangelists who want to make damned sure we cannot even look at women, much less speak with them.
http://www.gndzerosrv.com Jim Untershine
I believe that Stephen Baskerville is the main reason (if not the only reason) that victims of Family Law join the ACFC. His political insight into the Divorce industry, Child Support Enforcement, and the Foster Care industry, have allowed so many to understand the reason why family breadwinners and their children are victimized by many State governments. His analysis is concise, thorough, accurate, credible, irrefutable, and is presented to allow a deeper understanding even if the reader is not familiar with Family Law injustice.
I believe in Stephen Baskerville, and will continue to support his efforts to reform Family Law regardless of his affiliation. His new book “Taken into Custody” will be regarded by future historians as the “What to look for – if you suspect your country is leaning toward Fascism” and the catalyst for the emancipation of American Parents from Family Law.
Baskerville was sanctioned in 2001 by the Secretary of Health & Human Resources in Virginia for publicly setting the stage for Family Law reform as a member of the Child Support Guideline Review panel. If the ACFC is sanctioning Baskerville for promoting his book, you would think members of the ACFC would be told immediately, rather than forcing their President to tell the world. If Baskerville’s efforts are being impeded, I would like to advise the ACFC to either lead, follow, or get out the way – because Stephen is on a roll and I don’t want anyone to slow him down.
Lots of suggestions presented by many well-meaning men. I want to say that I am new here, I was not brought here by anyone, I wandered in. I did not know there WAS a men’s rights movement, I came looking for you.
The enemy is large, well organized, well funded and plenty mean. We are under assault on many fronts. I think a military analogy is appropriate. Our backs are against the wall. What do we need?
We need HELP. We need recruitment. We need a public victory in a just cause to let the public know we exist, and to inspire others to join us. It doesn’t need to be elaborate. I can hand out fliers, pool money with others and buy billboard space. The message needs to be simple, and college activist’s ideas on this matter are correct. The message needs to include “here is how you find us”. Absent consensus, I will make something up.
Jim Peterson
What I see wrong with the MRM is the failure so far to hang together with other men who may have been smart enough NOT to get married to a bitch and the deep desire to, therefore, hang separately. Obviously, if ACFC got to a point where they could not talk about other men’s rights issues (including other father’s rights issues), even when talking about them would prove misandry is a problem…then they were doomed to failure.
This is beginning to change.
Leaders like Dave Usher, Marc Rudov and Glenn Sacks have noticed that any major form of misandry in the USA needs to be exposed in order to prove to everyone who listens that there is an overarching “problem” whose symptoms rain down on the concept of “shared parenting” along with a dozen other major concepts.
If one attacks misandry on a broad front, one can make the public more aware that there really is a misandry problem to begin with.
If one just says “we divorced dads are being treated unfairly”…the single men and happily married men join the feminists in saying “who cares”.
Think of issues like ants. One ant will get eaten by the anteater. But 1000 ants can carry the anteater over the cliff. So the trick is to find 1000 instances of anti-male bias and use all of them to destroy feminism in the US, preferably with a number of parallel Pro Se challenges in the federal courts claiming, for instance, that domestic violence is a matter for states to decide and not something for the federal government, while also claiming that men do actually have Constitutional rights on the federal level.
I see a new “cause†develop every day. Just today it turned out that the missing British girl “Madeleine†was not carried off by a middle aged white male as the parents had suggested…the child was probably killed by the parents themselves who figured they could easily finger a middle aged white male.
We have 5 Conservative Supreme Court justices who will support us if we can only convince them that it is FEMINISM and MISANDRY that we are fighting and not something that conservative judges might find boring like “shared parentingâ€Â. If faced with a valid “misandry and feminism has gone too far†case, these 5 justices can, in one fell swoop, overrule hundreds of anti-male judges below them. We just need a case go get to them via a conduit of a pro-male judge that we find at the district level by not paying lawyers too much money to launch just one or two cases…but instead to have a dozen men launch pro se (lawyerless) challenges as probes to find the right judge.
Believe me, the enemy goes “judge shopping†in this manner.
Now how does one go about expanding the MRM to have a broader message that cannot be ignored as a whole? Well, we are doing that right here at MND.
Last Christmas I decided that the small group of men and women fighting the IMBRA law (forced background checks for men wishing to say hello to a foreign woman online) were NOT going to get a big movement going without allying with other groups. The reason was because only 0.4% of Americans socialize with foreigners and people were too dumb to see that, if IMBRA is upheld in the courts, the actions of American males on all social websites will be regulated within a few years.
I decided to talk on the phone with Dave Usher on and off for about six weeks.
Dave understood that divorced men not only had the issues of dealing with feminist ex-wives in terms of parenting and financial bondage…these men, and never-married men, needed to keep the available options of being able to find OTHER WIVES who might be more appropriate…without feminists daring to actually BLOCK THE ATTEMPTS of these men to find other wives.
He saw the IMBRA law as being integrally tied with the father’s rights movement in that divorced fathers were being prevented from remarrying…which would take money out of the reach of the greedy ex-wife’s lawyers. Usher saw IMBRA and VAWA as part and parcel the same thing: the US Congress was vindictively passing laws to keep men from the pursuit of happiness.
But I instinctively knew that Dave was getting some resistance from his peers at http://www.mediaradar.org as to whether to come out with a public opinion on IMBRA, presumably because the father’s rights movement could be “ridiculed” by being associated with so-called “losers who seek mail order brides”.
I remember feeling “Men are their own worst enemies. They allow themselves to be divided and conquered by feminists who create stigmas on various and supposed subgroups of men and cause them to repel each other the way nerds in high school often ignore each other”.
But Dave was on our side and finally came through with the following article that was prominently displayed on the MediaRadar website:
With the above, widely published article, Dave Usher had broken a barrier and made history by expanding the concept of what a men’s rights group should be standing up for and against.
With this one article, Dave Usher also noted that DIVORCED DADS HAVE THE RIGHT to find a better wife in any way they want and to start anew, preferably with their kids enjoying a great new mom.
After speaking with Dave Usher, I concentrated on convincing Glenn Sacks that IMBRA was about as anti-male as any law the US Congress had ever passed and directly related to the pain that a divorced man goes through. Glenn had been concentrating on the child custody issues and it took some convincing, but then he decided to post an Online Dating Rights advertisement on every newsletter he sends out and he wrote several articles, one of which is at this link:
Then I looked at the NoNonsenseman, Marc Rudov, who was starting to appear weekly on Fox News condemning feminists for being hypocrites and needing laws to tilt the balance of power in their favor in a zero sum game with men. I talked to Marc on the phone for hours. Finally he realized that IMBRA was a major men’s rights issue and he published the following:
Now Marc Rudov has expanded into being on CNN where he just attacked the State of Virginia’s anti-male billboard campaign against men who hold hands with their children:
My point is that the only really effective Men’s Rights organization is going to have at least as broad as agenda as the NOW. We need to get millions of men interested, even if we have to get the pro-porn men on our side against the feminists and evangelists who want to make damned sure we cannot even look at women, much less speak with them.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
Many MRAs are already contributing writers to MND – including Glenn Sacks, Stephen Baskerville, David Usher, Carey Roberts, Marc Rudov (who is now a Fox News AND CNN commentator), and the redoubtable Jim Untershine – among others.
Many contributors to this thread appear to be new.
If you did not already know, MND is the single most widely read MRA news source in the world. This site is indexed constantly by both Google.com and their news arm – news.google.com.
Any article posted on the mensnewsdaily.com domain is usually visible on both google news and google.com within about 30 minutes of posting. That means we have an INTERNATIONAL, WORLD WIDE AUDIENCE for our issues AT OUR FINGERTIPS.
Try it for yourself: do a search for the title of this very article on http://google.com and http://news.google.com :”Serious Problems at ACFC: An Open Letter to the Board”
As I have said many times before – I have been operating this website single handedly (and a great personal expense) for the past six years. I am not financially well-equipped by any means, but I will continue to walk alone in this desert if need be for as long as I am humanly able. But if you are a level-headed, sober, intelligent, and well-ordered Men’s and Father’s Rights Activist, I can and will give you the platform you need to get your message out to the entire world.
We have the megaphone already, folks. YOU only need to step up to this international soapbox, take the megaphone from my hands, and tell the world what you already know.
MND needs you! Please donate to us EARLY AND OFTEN using the Chipin service below…
Jim Peterson
We need more men like Marc Rudov getting on CNN and Fox News while attacking all issues of misandry, especially the ones currently in the news, like the Duke Rape Case, the Reinvigoraition of the Colorado U Rape Case and this:
We have to stop the crazy notion that single men are going to rally behind a bunch of seemingly asexual divorced guys who seem like they only want to be with their kids and not get a new mommy for them and a proper bed partner for themselves.
I swear to you: it looks bad to come across as so defeated that all you want to do from your new basement rented room is get a fair deal from a judge.
My kind of guy leaves the country and lives in style with a babe.
Why stay in the USA if it works against you?
I have never been married but I still see that the system is stacked against white males over 35. I am in Sweden now. Sweden is supposed to be the most feminist country of all but even they are not as obnoxious and unfair as the American feminists.
If we are going to win against the feminist juggernaut, we are going to have to appeal to the young single men and show them how misandry wants to take THEIR fun away.
And MND shouldn’t compete with WND to see who is the most “right wing” either. The Republican Party of Bush and Rove is no longer the pro-male party it once was. We could go very far if we exposed extremists like Senator Sam Brownback who helped get VAWA passed the day before Christmas vacation 2005.
Brownback, Mr. Social Conservative, has buddies in the Vatican who helped him slander all American travelling businessmen as sex tourists. The Vatican recently announced that all women prostitutes are “victims” and all nations need to pass laws criminalizing only the purchase of these victims but not the actions of the victims themselves.
This is all part of Misandry and it is coming from the Right Wing as well as the Left Wing.
Vanessa at Feministing.com accused me and MND in general of being “as right wing as it gets” the other day.
There is no reason to cleave to the type of people who hate us as much as the feminists do.
http://www.exiledfathers.org markyoung12
Thanks for posting my first comment. Sorry if I spoke too soon in the 2nd. Please remove it if possible.
[Comments from newbie posters are held in a cue until I have a chance to approve them. Almost all comments are approved except for the most irrelevant or purposely combative. - ed.]
http://www.sharedparentingworks.org Teri Stoddard
Stephen, you have my full support. Please keep leading for the equal child custody and shared parenting cause, in whatever organization you choose if ACFC can’t solve it’s problems.
And no, don’t switch over to fathers’ rights. We’ve come as far as we have, and gotten as big as we have because we’ve added noncustodial moms, grandparents and CPS families. I believe in power in numbers.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for telling the truth. I’m a huge supporter of the truth. Dealing with it is the only way to success.
With love and appreciation,
teri
mruffolo
After about 125 court appearance for a divorce I did not want (or I felt that I deserved) on December 29, 2004, I read a couple of Baskerville articles on divorce.
These articles tipped over my apple cart. They were so disruptive and insightful that I put them away, placing them on the back burner, which is what I do with stuff that messes with my head.
After prayer and within a few weeks, I changed strategy in my divorce based on the Baskerville truths about the divorce industry. Within months the divorce was over.
I credit Baskerville for ending my pain and confusion of divorce process, and better understudying how my government influences my wife and lawyer’s actions.
Though I have not received any membership material as promised from ACFC from donations, I still contribute money and promote the organization because of Baskerville’s involvement.
Vision and purpose keep men together, among other things. Few organizations are problem free. Father’s rights and family is bigger than the whole of a few groups. If a group dies, the cause still lives. Long live the cause. End feminist government involvement.
mruffolo
Jim Peterson wrote “Why stay in the USA if it works against you?”
About 2/3 of the world’s 240 countries are patriarchs (South Africa, South America, Muslim, Asia). Women are traditional and do not condemn and or compete with men.
I plan to move to a another country soon. I expect to have citizenship and a passport within two years. I care little about Hillary, Obama, or Thompson’s chances of being President, but care a lot about my likelihood of being falsely accused of something, then have it cost something I value or worked to save.
http://www.fightfoc.com laryholland
Stephen and friends,
I am proud to call some of you my friends and others I am proud to say that you are not. Even if you are not my friends, I would support you and the goals within the realm of our shared desire to be with our children and to assure that our children will not experience what many of us hardened family court veterans have regretfully experienced.
I received Dr. Stephen Baskerville’s Open letter and read through it completely. I was compelled immediately to check my now meager checking account. I had a mere $115.00 left over, after I paid some of my bills, that was to last until the upcoming Friday. Remembering again how I had tens of thousands of dollars in that same account before I met the family court system. Now, I have been in and out of work because of a serious accident in June that has resulted in some lingering effects to my head and body. My hospital bills and finances are catastrophic, and I am barely hanging onto my own home. I went to the ACFC website and immediately signed up for an Associate Level ($65.00) Membership Account.
Why did I sign up for an organization that is having problems? Because Stephen asked me to with his letter. HE has my support, because I believe that he fully understands many of the issues that we have struggled on a local and regional footprint to bring to the forefront. I may not agree with everything and may have some personal differences to Dr. Baskerville’s ideologies but I would assist Dr. Baskerville whether an organization was behind him or not. I would do so with my last dollar and every bit of my other resources and expertise because of the things that we do agree on.
I don’t fully believe that the problems we are faced with are limited to just the family court system. I believe that the problems that we are faced with are systemic of a constituency that loses sight of what our country was founded upon. We need to again stand together and rise above the apathy and personal issues that we have for or against one another and look to the issues that we can work together on. The system thrives on division, and we are often times the best ones at supporting the very thing that tears us down simply by not rising above the personal issues that keep us apart in our “demands for change.”
I have always stayed away from other organizations because I could not fully agree with any single one of them. So today, I join the ACFC and hope that others will follow. I stand with Dr. Baskerville and with other parents that want to help shape the world into a better place for our children and subsequent generations. I love my children, and I don’t want them to have to endure the feeling of their children not being able to be with them. It’s bad enough that they already feel the pain of not being with one of their parents.
Though I am loath to join any groups I’m not already a member of (to rewrite the old Woody Allen joke), I am now a proud Member of ACFC….
Donation Form:
ACFC Membership
Donation Level:
ACFC Membership
Gift Amount:
$25.00
Tax-deductible Amount:
$25.00
Tracking Code:
1382-1082-1-26861-46021
I was able to make this donation by virtue of the help that I have received from the MND community over the last few days.
Thank you all.
http://www.firmncp.com Eric
Gosh darn!
I am humbled.
However, first let me state that I posted the #4 response above and that response was directed at the first 3 posts that have been censored and none of us can see them anymore. That stinks. I don’t care if the first three response (before the last 3 responses replaced them before my 4th response-if that makes any sense…), were from feminazis. When we censor any thoughts and especially those that we disagree with, we are no worse than the feminazi PIGS that we all shun with disdain.
That said, I am humbled with all the correct rhetoric. I am in awe of how well others can state their thoughts. I truly wish I could do so. But. alas, I am just Eric…an angry father. And why not be angry? Don’t we have that right anymore, too?
So many stating such knowledgeable comments. All the names that I have seen for 10-20 plus years. And, even Lary Holland that I have not seen state anything for years… (I do miss your e-mails, btw (by the way) ).
But, do I see one common denominator or am I blind? Do I actually see so many AGREEING with Stephen Baskerville with their particular agenda stated that may be somewhat “off” but, still in line with Stephen Baskerville’s writings? Do I actually see that even though not everyone agrees with everything that the good Doctor has to say, but overall, believe in the message of Equal Shared Parenting (ESP)? I like to think so and that is why we CAN work together (even if independently) and I know that Stephen Baskerville can coordinate all of us as seems to be the overall message(s)/consensus stated above.
Stephen Baskerville? You have our support. We KNOW that you will not rip us off. That blind faith of those that believed Martin Luther King who studied and perfected Mahatma Gandhi’s thoughts of civil disobedience, can and has apparently been deeded over to you.
If the ACFC does not recognize what you have to offer, then by all means, let’s move on to the “Stephen Baskerville Fund” and get this “movement” well along it’s way and I can bet my last nickle that not only will F4J support you, but all the other groups out there that have a semblance of what our Constitution (of all our various countries) adhere to when justice and equality is stated.
Let’s take back our God given rights and if that means bankrupting the ill gotten gains created by the gender bashing, SCUM sucking evil feminazis (militant feminists) at the expense of our children, government that blesses and condones the atrocities directed at one gender (male), then by all means, let’s do it!
P.S.: Teri, you still don’t get it. I sure wish you would/could… You could/would be a great asset if you truly understood the problem(s)…much as Wendy does of Ifeminist…
If ACFC is to support only shared parenting, there is little reason not to share office space and resources with Children’s Rights Council. What other than ego prevents Dave Roberts and David Levy from merging? Clearly, CRC has a significant history of successful interaction with government. I see little reason that these organizations can’t further champion issues such as single sex education and others that are supported by basic conservative values that are politically viable. There is much to talk about and conservative media will be receptive.
Unfortunately, this political approach doesn’t address many issues of the plight of men that have no political solution. As long as one places men and women on an equal political basis and supports an androgynous society, the male-female competitiveness situation will be exacerbated and marriage and traditional family will soon be history. Just as the “Serious Problems at ACFC†arise because of power conflicts; neither ACFC nor marriages can’t survive when no one is in charge.
If society chooses to ignore the teachings of the world’s major religions and all historical and archeological evidence and continues to promote androgyny, society will simply collapse. Wishful thinking doesn’t build bridges, or societies. Only compliance with natural laws will lead to a righteous successful society.
http://www.firmncp.com Eric
Just another thought…
I agree with Mike LaSalle:
Do not incorporate under the “501(c)(3)†corporation organizational program offered to us.
If you look at what it really states, it states that we cannot be politically motiviated to the point of financially supporting others to correct the atrocities.
This is why and most reputable groups refuse to incorporate as non-profits for if we do, we have already compromised our beliefs…
This is from Texas, but does generally show this in the FAQ’s…
If we do anything, let’s do it honorably and without governmental intervention in order to not comprise our beliefs of ESP (Equal Shared Parenting).
We are men. Let’s do what men do: Take, as our founding fathers did, our God given rights. We have no obligation to request them. Our only obligation is to take them as our Constitution(s) require us to do…
I contacted ACFC by memorandum/mail in October of 2006 with a request to do an amicus brief for the Tenth Circuit regarding a suit I filed against my ex-spouse for concealing the whereabouts of my child. http://www.knowyourcourts.com/Harrington/06-1418.htm
Unfortunately, I never received even an ackowledgement.
It is because the Tenth Circuit panel rightly assumed that no one was watching my case or cared (other than myself) that made it particularly easy for the panel to have the conscience to issue an unpublished, non-precedential affirmation of the dismissal of my case by falsely characterizing it a “custody” case when, in fact, the case had nothing to do with a decree of custody, divorce, alimony or child support.
Simply having an amicus brief or two puts the court on notice that the case is being watched and matters to someone. The outcome of my case, which could have had a significant deterrent effect on custodial parents, who conceal children from their fathers (as did Raftery v. Scott, 756 F.2d 335 (4th Cir. 1985); Wasserman v.
Wasserman, 671 F.2d 832 (4th Cir. 1982); Drewes v Illnicki, 863 F.2d 469 (6th Cir. 1988), among others), was of no consequence to ACFC.
Although I am only one person, I seem to find the time to help many people. Here, we read that ACFC doesn’t seem to be adding any value to the equation except, perhaps, for the ego of a few select individuals other than Baskerville, who are the leadership.
I am a dues-paying member of H.A.L.T., E.F.F. and Public Citizen. However, I can think of no compelling reason to join an organization such as ACFC when, on a $100K per year operating budget, it can’t expend the very little time and money on an envelope and stamp to say, “We don’t have the resources to participate as amicus in your case. Best of luck.”
It is so easy to anonymously attack folks who have actually accomplished things like passing a number of great state laws and theming/organizing/executing the largest protests in the history of the movement. It is not egotistical to point these accomplishments out — it is a matter of movement history. I have seen you do nothing to advance the cause, and everything to anonymously attack those who are actually doing something. Therefore, we are better off if you get out of the movement. We do not need naysayers and backbiters in this movement.
amfortas
Eric, re #45. Teri DOES get it in her #40.
There is room for a hundred specifically focused groups, each with their own constituent and skill/attitute/direction basis.
The idea of a multi-faceted, informal gouping of ‘anarchistic’ groups is as good as any if you can make it work for positive change. That Fathers-only get together for that specific cause is good. That another group includes grandmas and children to achieve another objective is also good. There are many priorities out there and forcing square pegs into round holes ain’t going to work. Let a broad membership and constituency develop around all the priorities. What is needed is a C in C to tie them all together.
David R. Usher
Re: Selburg #16:
“Male egos and the very actions so aptly described by Ush above are at the heart of the problem. As Ush says, I have the answers and if you won’t follow me, I’ll take my marbles and go home and blow my own horn. I know what is best and have no intention of subordinating my way to anyone.”
Lloyd, you haven’t brought any marbles to the table. And you expect me to play marbles with you??? What have YOU accomplished for the men’s movement over the past 18 years you have been around the tables?
I do recall that you supported George McCasland and NCFC President Travis Ballard in violating a majority vote of the full NCFC board to fire McCasland (et al) for stealing NCFC monies and permitting a prostitute to operate out of its office. You supported Ballard and McCasland in stealing the NCFC computers and office equipment. And, you continued with NCFC in spite of the fact that Ballard blocked the full board from getting copies of the bank records so we could figure out where all the money went. It was this major theft of funds by various ATTORNEYS running NCFC that brought about my resignation as Secretary, along with 2/3 of the rest of the board back in December 1994.
Then, while you clung to NCFC, Stu Miller, Dianna Thompson, Dave Roberts, myself, and others founded ACFC in 1995. Given your highly questionable record in the movement, I do not think you are in a position to comment on anything with any level of credibility. I strongly suggest you back off buddy because the board meeting tapes could still be put out on the internet.
“Ush has no intention of supporting a parental rights case to the US Supreme court because that is not what he thinks will do any good. The man that BELIEVES that a landmark Supreme Court decision will change things may well be correct. ”
Anyone who wants to spend the money and time to do an SC case is welcome to do so. I won’t spend my time on it because the way federal laws are written there isn’t much to work with. I have never seen a father’s or men’s case win a major victory in the federal courts. But I do see thinking changing at Heritage and Family Research Council. My focus is on changing federal law and conservative thinking. I have to practice time management. That I do this does not make me the bad guy.
Jim Peterson
Dave,
How do you think the Heritage Foundation is changing its thinking? Does the eccentric billionaire Dick Scaife still pull the strings there? Erica Little was the gatekeeper who shut down our advances on getting IMBRA discussed. She said “sounds like a good law to me”.
Getting the Heritage Foundation FULLY on board with fighting misandry would be a major coup, even more important than Marc Rudov’s brilliant invasion of the airwaves with the recent Fox News and, now, CNN debates with feminists.
We need guys like Dave Usher actually EMPLOYED by the Heritage Foundation.
This would effectively win us back the Republican Party.
I have worked hard to get Dave Usher, Glenn Sacks and Marc Rudov to recognize that IMBRA and VAWA are as destructive to men before and during marriage as the post-divorce parenting nightmares.
Jim Peterson
How is the thinking changing at the Heritage Foundation? Wouldn’t some women there have to have been fired in order for there to be change?
Jim Peterson
My recommended strategy for the courts would be broad based and broad overall:
In order to shop for the right judge, we would need 5 or 6 pro se plaintiffs to launch a challenge against VAWA and Title IX noting that domestic violence and sexual harrassment are not federal issues.
We would wait for one of those plaintiffs to hit on a rational judge and then back him with a $100,000 lawyer team.
We would press the case to the Supreme Court while constantly thinking about the precedents set in the histories of the 5 conservative SC justices.
In getting a 5-4 decision overthrowing a huge amount of federal entitlements to feminists, we would also get the SC to curb the states by reminding them that certain rights such as “due process” and “free speech” and “right to assembly” are sancrosanct and actually do apply to white heterosexual males as well.
What I see us doing now is getting the 5 or 6 pro se plaintiffs organized and briefed on how to slam down each of a number of laws in court, focussing on getting at least parts of those laws under restraining order. Obviously, we cannot afford to pay lawyers for each of the 5 or 6 challenges, especially when the majority will probably meet up with anti-male judges.
Conservative judges dominate as one moves up the ladder.
I will get my thoughts together and present a detailed plan.
Jim Peterson
The biggest drawback to my plan would be finding 6 Americans who, without a lawyer, are willing to walk into a federal courthouse and put down a document that the rest of could have helped write. These people would have to have an outgoing confident personality.
Retired military guys would be perfect. Female plaintiffs would be like gold and platinum.
They would have to understand that only 1 or 2 of them would break through. One can tell in 4 days if one has a good judge or a loser. A judge who denies a restraining order with anti-male rhetoric would basically stop a great plaintiff cold.
It would be like sending 6 great commandoes onto an enemy beach and watching 4 of them get blown to bits with a handgrenade in the first 4 minutes while the other two get through the breach and behind enemy lines.
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
Re: #54 Jim:
Raising the appropriate question in the original pleadings and pursuing that argument through the complete appeals process is necessary, Unfortunately most don’t have a clue of what to do from the original divorce proceedings and have not laid the appropriate groundwork when they realize the problem. The self-interest of the legal profession in making millions litigating custody all but insures no competent attorney will pursue my parental rights question.
Any constitutional question that rises to state Supreme Court level often enough with conflicting results will sooner or later receive attention at the US Supreme Court if pursued.
Wow, I feel like I’ve just attended a high school reunion. It astounds me to read so many names here that are familiar. I would like to know all the others too.
It’s great to read the names of people I feel I’ve known forever: Murtari, Lovett, Loose, Stoddard, Richar, and Untershine.
Good luck Brian, I want your efforts to succeed; just like I want any other who has the balls to bring it to the tyrants.
I think that Steven Baskerville has swerved into a self-evident truth. Our cause to preserve and protect the fundamental rights of children and parents, alike, is larger than we all ever imagined. Stephen has nailed it, we need leadership. If he wants to lead, I say get out of the way. And, I pledge my support.
Free people who know social injustice live in a big tent; we have room for anyone and everyone: thinkers, activists and the naysayer.
Richard Eichinger
Eaton, Ohio
MensIssuesObserver
#33 refers to Kenworth Truck Company’s President Bill Gross in 1975 at the production plant on East Marginal Way South in south Seattle as the 1976 Centennial trucks were being built. I’ll add that although the line was down 20 minutes, he decreed that the day’s 17-truck production would still be met. It was.
I confess to having used a similar tactic three times in my career when in exasperation after failing to convince someone that the discussions were over and this is what we would be doing. It goes something like this: “As long as my butt is the one in this chair, this is how it will be done. If you don’t accept that, you need someone else sitting here.†I was never fired, although I must add that I was damn sure I was very arguably right before I reached for and used that ultimatum.
Stephen, make up a Memorandum of Understanding clearly stating how you will be running ACF&C and present it to the board. The board can then either step back and let you lead as stated or proceed to continue the Chinese Fire Drill they seem to keep fueling.
I meant to include Fund Raising and Chapter Relations in the core ACF&C responsibilities.
There are dozens of existing groups and websites that could feed into the ACF&C Focus Groups to increase their reach and power. Build a strong organization with a reason for them to join and they will join.
Dream of the day the AFC&C buries all notions of being a “one-trick pony†and fields targeted platoons to take on each of the specific evils destroying boys, men, husbands, fathers, and children. Yes, indeed, a new day will have dawned.
matthew good
Sadly, Stephen, I see the same here in Australia. Non-custodial parents, predominantly fathers, continue to send mixed messages about what changes and reforms they are seeking. Political (ie. government) funding has largely silenced the very organisations which were purportedly established to advance a rebuttable presumption for shared parenting (also known as joint or equal time parenting). Worse still, those leaders actually extend their “gratitude and thanks” for the abhorent treatment fathers are getting in the very legal systems they are supposed to be reforming. I cannot fathom the sheeer stupidity of being grateful for being screwed over. Within weeks prior to each Federal election, certain “leaders/ stakeholders” will work to rally loyalty and support for the very Liberal Party (now in Government) which has stood by and done nothing for non-custodial parents by scuttling the efforts of those who would advance these issues into the political arena. They operate in much the same way as you have described, by “reigned in” members who would otherwise be much more pro-active, vocal and effective going it alone in a smaller network of activists. Of course, the ALP is no solution to the Family Court problems in Australia (quite the antithesis), but the foolishness of re-electing a failed government with failed and insincere policies in this area is astounding. Good on you for speaking out. I wish you well.
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
I fully concur that the next step is for Steve Baskerville to layout a public ultimatum to the ACFC board that clearly states his vision for ACFC’s future and take control or leave. Organizations that are more concerned with appearing politically correct than dealing with the hard facts of reality and with a narrow shared parenting focus are never going to gain the support of the varying groups of justifiably angry men.
A basic unifying mission statement as proposed by Rich Doyle must be included.
“TO PRESERVE THE TRADITIONAL NUCLEAR FAMILY THROUGH RESTORATION OF EQUAL DIGNITY AND EQUAL (NOT IDENTICAL) RIGHTS UNDER THE LAW FOR ALL MALE PERSONS ACROSS A BROAD SPECTRUM OF LIFE, INCLUDING DIVORCE, EMPLOYMENT, HEALTH, CRIME PUNISHMENT AND IMAGE.â€Â
Establishing a “think tank†with several additional well educated effective spokes persons is mandatory. It’s strange that Sanford Braver could produce the study and research he has and yet not be an active vocal supporter of our cause. We need an seasoned attorney like Ron Herny more interest in saving society than supporting the bar that will develop a plan to establish parental rights in custody determinations. We need a cultural anthropologist spokes person that will clearly outline the history of androgynous and matrifocal societies ending in failure. A forensic psychologist would be helpful to establish the link between increasing crime and the destruction of the American family. Association with a MD, psychiatrist like Leonard Sax concerned with gender differences and same sex education would also be a huge benefit.
http://www.acfc.org jms43rad
Stephens comment are targeted at a broader spectrum of ths movement, which by the way, is growing in astrnomical proportions. He Highlights the general apathy.
The criticism is a wake up call. EVERYONE, MUST TELL TWO PEOPLE EVERY DAY. AND CALL YOUR CONGRESS AND STAT LEGISLATORS
These are great comments. We need to take these to heart and adjust the marketing spin and plan. We should have had at least 50,000 people at the DC Rally in 2008. The good news is we reached about 30,000, mostly tourist, many stopping by to hear the message, which could be heard to the Vietnam, Korean, and Lincoln memorials. In addition, we reached 38 states and countless countries, including Israel. Great sound system (thanks Mr.. Walker). I saw a Vietnamese family holding up a DADS poster for a picture facing the Capitol.
It really was the most significant event I have seen in 15 years. Next year, well I think there is greater passion and unity amongst the groups. There are lots of pictures and videos out there and everyone needs to get these up on the web.
I can not close without recognizing our Michigan locals: Rev Ron Smith, Robb Mackenzie, Robert Pederson, (for the media of the Bike Trek), Dave Taylor, Dr. Michael Ross, Jay Fedewa, Brain Downs, Carol Rhodes, Angela Pederson, Mark Havas, and many others. And it would not have happened without Steven Walker and Bessie Hudgins.
Also great work from ACFC, CRC, the Towers, F4J, RADAR (that canvassed Congress on Friday), the veterans that showed up, etc. etc. etc.
It brought a lot of new people into the fold, that can make a difference.
With any event, there are high and low points, but collectively, we raised the bar. And added some ump !
Cheers.
James Semerad
Dads and Moms of Michigan, An ACFC Affiliate
ssears
James,
I think that you are on the right track. That being said I saw a couple of things that must be food for thought.
1. When Bill planned his Walk here in Georgia it was important that the legislature be in session. The Congress ALWAYS takes an August Break. It is important to have the opportunity not only to protest in public, but pull together the lobbying efforts of those in attendence.
2. ACFC Should have information on How to Lobby. Lobbying at the grass roots level with congress and especially State Legislatures is the most powerful tool in the arsenal. It doesn’t take large amounts of cash, but time to talk to and understand how politicians work.
3. We need to make more of an awareness campaign regarding the issues of NCP’s and Especially Children in order to draw people that are not and hopefully will never be in the position that many of us find ourselves in.
4. One of the things I find most disconcerting is that when I speak with NCP’s who’s children have grown up and thier personal situation has changed, they all sympathize but really don’t stay involved in the movement. This NEEDS to change in order to stop the madness from effecting our future generations.
5. Second Wives can be an extremely powerful ally. I suggest that ACFC would do very well to align with some of the second wives sites on the Internet. They are extremely affected by the current state of Family Law and right or wrong it is “politically correct” for politicians to listen to women. Just take a look at the passage of VAWA.
6. We NEED more kids to speak out. Take a look at my son’s site, http://www.billsarena.com He has started to gain traction and publicity. People listen when kids make valid arguments, but 1 KID isn’t enough. People seem to think that they should shelter thier kids from much of the pain of divorce…..They are the ones that suffer the most pain. They understand far more than we think, they just need to know that there is action that they can take to move the Government.
I do believe that there is a NEED for a central body. I think its important to have a central oversight body, but a strong leader needs to have a certain amount of autonomy, take a look at large companies. The most profitible have a strong leader at the top with a great deal of decision making authority. The board is there simply to insure that things are going in the right direction and to be in an advisory role.
Regards,
Bill’s Dad
Jim Peterson
Here is a brand new article by a feminist journalist working for the Des Moines Register about the “men’s rights movement.”
A month ago, she solicited comments from men on why they think feminism is hurting them and why there are “angry white men” out there in 2007.
What happened is that, although a few of us like Ken Richards (for father’s rights) and me (for dating rights) were able to get the right points across, the poor woman was inundated as well with “redneck mail” and her report below is filled with comments from social conservatives who apparently felt their “men’s rights” were being abrogated primarily by the gay marriage movement and the existence of PETA, the animal rights group.
When you read this, of course you can surmise that this liberal journalist has deliberately included the correspondance from the confused uneducated guys and the kooks in order to devalue the message that Ken Richards and myself got across.
However, I think it is true that we are still conceptually disorganized. Read this and I will have another comment later:
Basu: What makes some men so angry? Let them count the ways
By REKHA BASU
REGISTER COLUMNIST
September 9, 2007
Why are they so angry?
After months of reading comments that lash out at women who support women candidates, or accuse the media, the courts and/or the government of an anti-male agenda, I put this question to the men who write them, especially online: What’s your problem?
I was wondering why white men, the demographic group that still controls the White House and most of the high offices and better-paying jobs, are casting themselves as the ones being discriminated against. And, when Iowa has never elected a woman to a national office, why are women who support Hillary Clinton labeled “Feminazis?”
Who or what do these angry men think has done them wrong?
I got an earful.
Dozens of people responded directly, and 130 posts were logged under the column online. I got stories, theories, put-downs, rants and some earnest attempts to communicate grievances.
Along with the angry men were a few angry women who agreed with them, plus a number of men who disagreed.
More than 30 years after the modern women’s movement was launched, there’s clearly a backlash. It’s not just against the growing rights of women but also against the liberalization of society in general. Some men say they’ve been hurt by relaxed divorce laws, child-custody presumptions or child-support rulings, or workplace attempts to diversify.
Later columns will explore whether the facts support those claims. The goal of this piece is to first identify the sources of their discontent.
This is a different type of piece than I usually write (and a more difficult one). I’m mostly keeping my own views out to give other an airing – because I asked, and people were cooperative enough to answer. The hope is that this will be the start of a public conversation on issues we can’t usually seem to disagree on civilly, but which are increasingly polarizing our world. It will work best if you, the readers, weigh in and make this a community-wide discussion.
Here are some of the things men say they are angry at: The court system. The Des Moines Register (and me in particular). Ex-wives. Affirmative action. The move to normalize gay life – or, in the words of some, the move against traditional or religious values. The criminal-justice system and what are viewed as unfair prosecutions of men.
“The pendulum has swung so far, the rights of men are being trampled without consequence when we consider false rape cases, husband-murderers walking free, and my ever-favorite – women winning single custody 93 percent of the time,” Ken Richards of Des Moines wrote from Uganda, where he’s working under contract to the State Department. “There is a backlash…”
His figure is challenged by advocates for mothers who were denied custody, who claim men get custody most of the time they seek it. (More on that in an upcoming column.)
Brian Iehl of Waterloo, who with Richards leads IowaFathers.com, a group for noncustodial fathers, faults the media for using terms like “Deadbeat Dad” and “Angry Men” to sway opinion. Both accuse some feminists of going beyond the drive for equality.
“I believe arch-feminists want traditional marriage destroyed at almost all costs since they despise men,” wrote Richards. The opposite is not true for those in the father’s movement as we seek equal relationships during marriage.”
Trying to uphold ‘traditional’ values
The idea that traditional values are under attack by feminism and diversity movements came up in several letters, including one from Brad Friest of Roland, who wrote: “I believe that this country was founded on the premise of God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit… In today’s society, most of these beliefs are under attack… Many people that stand opposed to my beliefs have suggested or implied that I should put up with different points of view for the sake of ‘diversity.’
“For me to accept homosexuality, I would be going against what I believe is God’s will.”
Only a Scripture-based argument could change his mind, he said.
So he thinks it is unfair to require an organization like the Boy Scouts to include gay leaders. And he resents being told by groups such as PETA that it’s wrong to eat meat. “If diversity were really the end goal, wouldn’t they celebrate that I can eat meat while they are vegetarian?” he asked.
Women’s gains at men’s expense?
Roger Olson, writing from Waco, Texas, said that while he supports equality, some advances for women are coming at the expense of men. Among his claims:
- That medical research and media health campaigns are skewed to women’s health.
- That men face an educational crisis, with only 73 young men graduating from college for every 100 young women who do, while educators focus on girls’ needs.
- That men are not presented as admirable role models in the entertainment media, but rather as stupid or sinister, whereas women appear strong and competent: “All kinds of stereotypes about men are perpetuated publicly, but the same cannot be done with regard to women.”
- That men are hitting a glass ceiling at work as women are being promoted over more qualified men.
Perceptions of feminist hypocrisy
Most of Des Moines resident Dan Frommelt’s anger centers on his perception of feminist hypocrisy. Such as, in his view:
- Wanting to be judged on her merits but depending on her spouse to draw crowds.
- Expecting motherhood to be a job consideration but only to their advantage.
- Wanting equal job opportunities but expecting unequal requirements to qualify.
- And this: “A woman dresses like a hooker and then reacts with disgust when she gets gawked at.”
Frommelt also believes feminism encourages women to pursue “meaningless” careers at their children’s expense. Robert J. Schneider of Urbandale explained white-male rage in the context of the charges of rape against Duke lacrosse players, which were later dropped.
“What irritates the ‘angry white man,’ ” he wrote, “is the prism through which the media and the professors chose to view the accuser’s story. It is a liberal prism and one that assumes we live in a racist, sexist society controlled by white men who will force their will (in this case, quite literally, according to the accuser) on the poor and nonwhite.”
He claims both the Republican and Democratic parties are feminist-dominated and blames President Bush and Karl Rove for adopting “the man-hating ideology of radical feminists.”
Referring to several federal laws, including the Violence Against Women Act, Peterson charged that Bush’s advisers have promoted the “feminist” idea that “every man is a sex offender waiting for an opportunity.”
Jeff Mallory of Stuart wrote, “I do not agree with how fathers are treated by the courts. I do not agree that people raping and murdering should be let out of prison, ever. They should be executed. I don’t think that if a woman is fighting with a man, and the police come, they should take the guy to jail. They should not. Print that.”
Maja Rater of Casey, who has been in the forefront of Iowa efforts to get the state to enforce child-support obligations, wrote that men do sometimes get mistreated by the system along with women. One man she mentioned is caring for his child but his wages are still being garnisheed, and the state hasn’t helped him.
Rater said her former husband is “an angry white man” who opposes welfare programs because if they didn’t exist, she couldn’t have afforded to leave the marriage.
Some men write to criticize men
At the other end of the spectrum are men like Giles Fowler of Ames, who attributed the roots of male rage to sexual anxieties. Such men, he wrote, “fear for – or secretly doubt – their maleness.” Kevin J. Pokorny of Des Moines, who supports female candidates but noted that some women don’t, asks, “Why are we still struggling with this issue in 2007, when our society is more diverse now than ever before?”
One reader offered an analogy from George Lakoff’s book, “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” which theorizes that a conservative’s view of society is an extension of a family model in which a strict father is the leader and women are not considered equal. The idea is that the world is dangerous, amoral and full of evil and only a man can be trusted to lead the country and the household.
“It is not just feminism that draws their anger,” wrote another man, John E. Barker of Des Moines. “Environmentalism, racial equality, social programs, the progressive income tax, in fact any and all interests that can in any way be equated with a liberal mind-set bring out an intense anger in some people.”
Feminism should liberate men, too
So, what to conclude?
For one thing, the gulf in basic assumptions about what constitutes equality is huge and seems to be growing, leading people to demonize one another based on half-truths.
Though statistics would show men still have more of the better jobs, there will be that man who doesn’t get promoted because, all things being equal, an employer wants to put a woman in a position in which there are too few. Though the larger intent is equality, it may not feel very fair to that man who doesn’t get the job. Feminism is about liberating both from sex roles. But the reality is, when you’re trying to equalize an unequal situation, it can be messy in the short run.
If men are being neglected in school or in medical studies, that has to be fixed.
But as the arc of rights is extended to groups that didn’t have them, it’s bound to bump against some people’s beliefs, reopening the debate over what principles – religious or secular – America was founded on.
Some of what critics identify as systemic bias boils down to competing viewpoints that are now being heard but once weren’t – for example, from vegetarians or gays.
A group like PETA may have no actual power over a meat-eater, but the fact that it can now hold a rally and get a hearing contributes to the meat-eater’s sense of being under attack.
That said, if efforts to be more inclusive don’t equally draw in those who were there first, they might be left feeling undervalued, which isn’t to anyone’s benefit.
More choices for women should also mean more choices for men, including the choice to stay home and raise kids. As women make more money, that becomes more of an option. But it also might leave men feeling more dispensable.
Most feminists would agree that women in the military should do the same things as men. I don’t want the draft, but if there were one, it should be applied equally to both sexes.
But not everything is or can be equal. Men can’t have equal reproductive rights because, fortunately or unfortunately, women have the wombs.
With dialogue, there can be hope
The heartening thing to come out of this is hearing from people on all sides who are willing to put their grievances to constructive use. Ultimately, we need a lot more discussion on where feminism has succeeded, where it hasn’t and where perceptions don’t match reality. But dialogue becomes impossible when some people resort to harassment to silence others.
Barker, for example, stopped writing letters to the editor of the Register after some, published in 2000, resulted in anonymous “insulting and bullying” mail sent to his home. One was overtly threatening.
A woman blogger from Ohio who came across my column wrote to tell me about female – and in particular feminist – bloggers being harassed and demeaned to the point where they stopped blogging.
Anger is sometimes necessary and appropriate when constructively channeled, but not when it degenerates into incivility or gets aimed at the wrong targets. And we’re all too well aware, as we approach a painful anniversary this week, that anger that isn’t addressed can turn ugly and destructive.
REKHA BASU can be reached at rbasu@dmreg.com or (515) 284-8584.
Jim Peterson
Imagine that someone donates 60 seconds of Super Bowl commercial time to MND with the stipulation that MND has to use it and not resell it to better use the cash.
Would we do 60 seconds worth of mini-interviews with aggrieved fathers?
Or would we be more bold and show the viewers where our bargaining strength lies?
I would imagine a video of a marriage ceremony where the minister asks the man “Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” The man then asks “what do you mean by lawful?”. The minister then answers “Full of laws…like she can accuse you falsely of abuse and take everything you have and keep you an endentured servant for life, etc”. The man backs out of the wedding and tries to run away as MND voiceover calls for a “Marriage Strike Until the Laws Change”.
The message of “Marriage Strike” would be noticed by single males and all single women where interviews with aggrieved fathers would cause them to turn the channel or go to the bathroom.
I am just being honest when I say that much of the above rhetoric puts me to sleep.
I want to see a funded organization that makes a difference with the general public (not just the people who gravitate here because they just lost their house to some bitch) and I want to see it cover a much broader range of issues than just parenting rights.
This new article by a feminist journalist for the Des Moines Register shows that even the feminists are confused by what we apparently want:
Notice how he wraps parenting rights into a larger, more cohesive and compelling theme.
conservativation
Wow, reading the microscopic restatements of parliamentary procedure and Rob’s Rules that Ush described above, and some of the bureaucratic machinations in response to it, and even prior, it should scream from the pages what is happening here. Tossing about who didn’t support the XYZ initiative and didn’t vote for the “chair†in the effort to extrapolate the ABC methodology of committee decorum while flailing about on flay rods in the friggin treadle is maddening guys.
Read Baskervilles article and show me where he is bogged down in process. That is exactly what is refreshing. With respect David Usher reminds me of the county Republican Party meetings I was involved with that couldn’t even issue a resolution stating we favored lower taxes or equally basic stuff. Why, because bureaucrats stood around with their copies of Robs Rules and insisted on making “points of orderâ€Â. In post 53 David, you digress so far into bureaucratic oblivion that it isn’t even clear there is a way out. But I know, I know, I haven’t spent 19 years yadda yadda yadda.
Amfortas gets something important. I recognized that it really is impossible to capture the entire MRM in a single movement. All of the grievances are valid for the most part and are due relief. A huge bureaucracy simply cannot and will not fight all the fronts. As a clearinghouse for information, like this site has been, sure, but spreading money around will lead to conflicts. Let those impacted put money into “their†cause.
Someone wrote that MND cannot out conservative WND and shouldn’t try. It ain’t my ballgame, but I’d agree, and lately its been all Republican politics here and little other then Sacks anecdotes. My 2 cents on that….I know Mike chased no one away, but something sure did happen.
Trying to use the same system that led to the problems is bound for failure. Step back and look at it. Frankly I cannot understand the behavior, but maybe I’m idealistic.
Where does ego have a place? It doesn’t. Amazing, prior to the huge rally in DC recently I wrote that rallies were failed before they started under the pretext of this one. And I didn’t even know about the censorship on marriage comments….that is plain stupid and it, as someone said, looks ridiculous as a movement that talks of fathers but openly chooses to NOT support FAMILY…i.e. Marriage. David U. was billing the DC rally as a pinnacle event in articles written here…now he swaps positions and says that these things are vehicles to make folks feel validated…..EXACTLY!
I am not sure how to organize or not organize anything. I know I’m not just a pajama clad blather monger with a computer, but work within my little Church Feminized area essentially all alone, and have not accomplished much but have gotten recently the attention of some of the right people…who knows.
I do know that, while it caused great angst among some here, Elder George had some fundamental observations and proclamations that, in light of Dr. Baskervilles tell all piece, deserve some consideration, but I can only find him writing at his own site MenAction now. The whole seen and unseen debate did deal with a lot of the gossip we are prone to indulge in, even if said gossip is cloaked in parliamentary or legal language.
Usher is right about one thing, marriage is where the root cause to the symptom of family law and its destruction of fatherhood lies. Gender ordered marriages, like many here state are available outside the USA, is the true grass roots. But until we move beyond the superficial process debate, forget about seeing changes. Even passing or changing laws will not fix the gender disorder in this country. It is a change if heart, of how to lead and persuade, not foist and litigate.
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
It seems to me that the time has come for Dr. Baskerville to hit the road. He’s aligned himself with the Christian right and gone very far from the mainstream of American thought and culture. If he wants to continue campaigning to end no-fault divorce and otherwise be the champion of the Biblical world view, he should do so without the encumbrance of a mainstream political organization and support group.
The issues of shared custody, child support reform, and personal responsibility in divorce have broad appeal if stated properly and pursued with focus. In California, many prominent Democrats are on board, and they wouldn’t be if the issue were perceived to be “owned” by the Religious Right.
The Religious Right is in eclipse at the moment, thanks to the bungling Bush presidency, the Iraq War, the Terri Schiavo fiasco, and the gay sexual indiscretions of RR leaders such as Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig. This is no time for a mainstream organization to be touting ties to such people.
Baskerville has a teaching job at a Christian college that teaches creationism and a book that may sell a few copies. Good for him, now move on. The only thing that has ever energized the fathers’ right “movement” is fresh leadership. and the time has come for ACFC to turn the page.
kenbrewerus
Stephen Baskerville is THE voice of authority in our movement! I am getting in a position where I can join and make a contribution to the ACFC, but didn’t realize that they are not interested in my personal issues, which include restraining orders, protective orders, false DV charges, and ex-parte hearings. I also support shared parenting and child support issues, though I am not personally affected.
To L. Selberg, you make excellent points about the strengths of disorganization, which I have also considerd in the past. This is the side of the Men’s movement which is not talked about, because these are also the strategies of Mao Tse-Tung (I hate PC name changes), Uncle Ho, General Washington, and Osama bin Laden! Yours is a strategy which needs to be considered, sans the violence. We cannot win fighting battles by their rules. As we make what seemingly is a step forward in their arena, we are often knocked back two steps by a blow we didn’t see coming! http://ken454.statesmanblogs.com
conservativation
Richard Bennet, you must live on one of the coasts. Worse, supporting all kinds of ways to make divorce more fair, and claiming that you have the best interests of kids in mind, is the pinnacle of hypocrisy. Divorce is tragic for kids, or didn’t you know that.
Sure divorce will never go away, down to zero, but lumping Baskerville and his opposition to no-fault divorce together with your utterly flawed perception of what the so called Christian Right want is silly.
Having no care for the institution of marriage vis a vis divorce is just cold and uncaring for the innocent victims…the kids. Sure they can turn out fine, but their odds go way down.
Less divorce by design improves the prevalence of your pet problems. It sounds like you’d just like the option to pack and go with as little angst as the sistas have now. How can spreading that irrational notion to both genders make it all OK?
I want nothing to do with a world as selfish as the one you advocate.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
Hi Richard – thank you for posting. I have followed your work for years, and I have enormous respect for you.
I must, however, respectfully disagree with your comment above.
You said, “The Religious Right is in eclipse at the moment, thanks to the bungling Bush presidency, the Iraq War, the Terri Schiavo fiasco, and the gay sexual indiscretions of RR leaders such as Ted Haggard, Mark Foley, and Larry Craig. This is no time for a mainstream organization to be touting ties to such people.”
To begin with, I don’t think it’s at all fair to say that the “religious right” (whatever that is) is in “eclipse”. How can a dynamic 2000 year old FAITH be “eclipsed” by short term political media events? Heck, none of the things you mentioned in your list is older than about 24 months. Comparing 24 months of Today Show “reporting” to the oldest organized religions in the world is hardly a convincing way to set up an argument.
No sir. Human beings will never turn the page of faith – no matter how many Richard Dawkins’ the modern media may trot before the cameras.
A cultural movement as we have here before us cannot be sustained with a moral vacuum at its center – and there is plenty of historical evidence to back up that claim.
Indeed, if there is one thing that I can state in being a part of this “movement” for these past few years, it is that RELIGION remains the single most effective organizing principle in human affairs.
In respect to your criticism of Baskerville’s work as a professor at a “Christian college that teaches creationism” – this appears to be a circular attack with no reasoned foundation beyond the latest popular distrust in notions of “Faith”.
In my opinion – and I have given this a great deal of consideration over the years – there is no contradiction between faith and science. Of course the universe was “created” – it was created in a “Big Bang” some 14 billion years ago (according to the latest calculations). Therefore “Creationism” is a self-evident fact. Why would this make Baskerville any less credible as the foremost leader of the family movement?
This universe was indeed “created”, and neither you nor Richard Dawkins – God bless you both – can do anything to make it otherwise.
With respect (only slightly diminished),
Mike LaSalle
Editor and Publisher, MensNewsDaily.com
mr pearl
Steve Baskerville said:
“I enumerate these shortcomings in the hope that this will lead to constructive dialogue and improvement. An organization that cannot accept constructive criticism, that purges critics, and hurls anathemas at former friends is doomed to fail.”
It looks like ACFC Prez Baskerville is saying his own ACFC organization cannot accept constructive criticism, and purges its critics, and hurls anathemas at its former friends.
ACFC does have affiliates in other states, what are the experiences of those affiliates? Is the organization open to construuctive criticism? Will anyone comment on this? But Prez Baskerville looks to be correct on the subject of the ACFC website ………it looks antiquated.
Hope the American Coalition for Fathers and Children wakes up a little bit and lets Baskerville lead. It seems to be tying his hands.
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
Mike, I’m not counseling people to turn their backs on Jesus or the church, nor am I denying the Big Bang or the evolution that’s followed it. My argument is political, and the Religious Right is much more a political force than a spiritual one, and I dare say that most people of faith in the US don’t identify with it.
I’m looking at this from a strictly political point of view, and I’m very mercenary about it: I care about passing laws that make things better for fathers and children, so my primary concerns are matters of arithmetic: what do I have to do to get enough votes to pass a bill that reduces child support, makes joint custody more common, or imposes some accountability on recipients of spousal support? These are the main issues that I care about, and they’re political. Other people may very well want to spend their lives trying to outlaw divorce or bring prayer back to the schools, and I say more power to them. Those are important issues too, but they’re not on the same time line as my issues.
When Bush too office In 2000 and the Republicans held control of the Congress, it was smart to ally with the RR because they had the juice in Washington. They don’t any more, as the Dems have taken back the Congress and will almost certainly take back the White House in 2008. So those of us who want to move the ball down the field need to be able to work with President Hillary and her cronies in the Congress. And in that respect, Washington is looking more and more like California. Nancy Pelosi hails from Frisco, from a district in which more people voted for Nader than for Bush.
FR’s need to learn how to think in terms of progress and small victories. Political reform is actually easier than cultural reform and there are important victories out there to be won with focus and smart politics.
college activist
jms43rad…I agree that everyone who hears this message should work on telling 2 people a day about mensactivism!!
I have made up and given out around 400 wallet size (business size cards) to college students and men i come accross in my day to day activities!!
The business cards are quite simple!! and they have websites on them for individuals to educate themselves!!
Another effective reach out strategy would be to pull a ray Blumhorst..and make a huge sign for youre pickup truck..and park it downtown in a major city..now were talking 50,000 sightings of a mensactivist’s web sight each day!!
a little less talk and alot more action!!
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
“the Religious Right is much more a political force than a spiritual one, and I dare say that most people of faith in the US don’t identify with it.”
I agree with this assessment partially – but it’s definitely not the whole picture.
But – ok – according to this argument, if there is such a thing as the “Religious Right”, then does it make sense to suppose that there is – or can be – alternate groups of religious activists that we might term the “Religious Left” or the “Religious Libertarian”?
That is – if the so-called “Religious Right” are composed of active church-going congregations across the South and the West – can we suppose that there is an alternate group of Religious Activists that can be called upon to vote en masse as the so-called “Religious Right” has been known to do? If, as you say, “most people of faith” are not identified with the RR, is there anything that can make these other silent people of Faith into a cohesive voting unit?
Your argument here seems to be: get the vote out for party x, and party x will reward you will political plums.
It’s true: both political parties operate according a “winner take all” spoils process. Thus, when I lived in Democrat-ruled San Francisco, and was accused by my estranged wife of domestic violence, the ideological Feminist/leftist/democrats were in control of Family Court Services, the Criminal Courts, the prosecutors office, Social Services, and all the attendant government-funded NGOs whose purpose was to brutally and methodically separate fathers from their children. This was a world of purchased justice, wherein the Feminist Left were the rulers, and any man accused – regardless of his political affiliations (and I was at that time a Democrat) – was an instant enemy in the eyes of the State Apparatus.
On the other hand, this spoils process does not appear to be limited to the Left. In places like Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and all points in between, the conservatives appear to have made the same deal, and are just as quick to destroy a man’s life on the whim of a disgruntled spouse – aided and abetted by a Family Court system entrenched and guarded by the most obnoxious feminists these states can produce.
The point is – the spoils process works for both parties, but it is the Feminist Left that appears to have captured the flag of Family Issues in domestic courts across America, regardless of the party in power.
Asking the Democrats for help with this problem will be a failed strategy out of the box.
So where does that leave us?
Fatherhood cannot be a political spoil. It’s far too late for that.
It must therefore become first and foremost a MORAL issue. And it is in this way that politically active people of genuine religious faith can be educated, enlisted, and rallied on election day to help our MORALLY JUSTIFIABLE cause.
On that day, the plums will roll.
Jim Peterson
What Bennett appeared to be saying was that the Religious Right has failed men in their fight against left wing radical feminism. Bennett did not explain how there is so much misandry in evangelical teachings these days, which would lead to women getting away with false rape accusations (“what were those men doing having premarital sex in the first place” asks the holy roller).
Sam Brownback supported VAWA and IMBRA, two of the most draconian feminist laws ever passed, if not the most. Brownback is an arch conservative with too many friends in the Vatican. The Vatican, itself, is now controlled by Marxist feminists.
So, if Dr. Baskerville is the kind of guy who would not criticize Brownback and use some of the ACFC funding to counter Brownback’s pathetic fun for President, then maybe we need someone more independently minded politically to run a funded men’s rights organization.
I don’t know the details of the ACFC and a lot of what is being written above is confusing and filled with “Roberts Rules” jargon.
I only know that the religious right politicians in Congress voted unanimously for the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and International Marriage Regulation Act (IMBRA).
The right wing and Heritage Foundation have not yet officially apologized and come out in favor of men’s rights.
That needs to be the priority of ALL men’s rights organizations, regardless of whether they selfishly want to concentrate on specific clauses of specific laws in specific states.
Jim Peterson
And by the way: I know a man who wants to challenge all of VAWA next week in federal court.
Unless you want to see another train wreck, I would advise anyone here with any knowledge to write me at veteran at veteransabroad.com so I can help him stage the complaint properly.
I specifically want to see a detailed account of past federal cases that failed or were successful in terms of men’s rights.
college activist
jim# 64…thats a genious commercial about the marraige and the man asking about…”what do you mean lawfull???”
I would throw in a few bucks to see that one!!!
you should do a podcast on MND. of exactly what you mean!!
Call that fellow that is U tube savy, and tell him We’lle throw down a very modest amount if he can do a commercial podcast for us…I’m sure Mike would host it!!
It depicts foreign women reacting to the concept that American feminists push that, if an American man chooses to date or marry a foreigner, it is because he failed to find an American because he was a loser.
Jim Peterson
Any funded men’s rights organization can hire great intelligent foreign women who can conduct interviews and be spokespeople and expert witnesses. I live 5 hours from St. Petersburg, Russia. I could hire brilliant English speaking women for $1000 per month with an office of $350 per month.
They could fill YouTube with videos of women criticizing the American feminist system, especially the parenting and father’s rights issues.
mruffolo
I listen to sermons almost daily on podcast; however, I frequently turn them off because I’m offended by their “men are bad” framing.
For example, this morning a message from Dr. Dobson Focus on the Family program, he invited the marriage team from five love languages fame, Dr Gary Chapman and his wife. When they gave examples about their new “forgiving languages”, they framed men as the offender – men abuse women, the man cheated on his wife, the man focus on work not the family.
I have feminist deficit disorder. So turn off to the same message, yet I am interested in the Word of God.
Further, I worshipped at Willow Creek Community Church, another feminist organization.
I sense that American churches embrace feminism, which in general, men are bad and women are good. I feel uncomfortable when I here that men are mostly in the wrong.
mruffolo
Jim Peterson I like the way you think.
college activist
jim peterson..I like the way you think!!
I will donate a 100 dollars to see that commercial you desribe!!
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
@Jim Peterson: “What Bennett appeared to be saying was that the Religious Right has failed men in their fight against left wing radical feminism.”
I’m saying the RR doesn’t have the power to help fathers, and even when it did have the power, it didn’t have the desire. Religious conservatives believe that raising children is women’s work, and any man who wants to be involved in his child’s life is probably a child molester. This attitude draws on their interpretation of the Bible and their experience with Catholic priests, Ted Haggard, etc. Read “Marriage Movement” leaders like Blankenhorn, they blame the decline of the family on men.
So to bring this back to the topic of the thread, Baskerville cultivated ties with the Religious Right. This more or less excludes ties to more moderate and liberal forces, and therefore hurts the fathers’ movement. So the time has come to put the fathers’ movement back on a more moderate course.
T Golden
When you look for people who have taken action to help the sad state of men’s issues in our country today Stephen Baskerville is surely near the top of the short list. It looks to me that Stephen felt he had no alternative to post this letter given the state of affairs he describes. I do hope that something positive can come from it.
Our cause has suffered greatly from our lack of cohesion and willingness to work towards the success of others. Maybe we will see ACFC step up and work things out. I do hope so. No matter what happens Stephen Baskerville has my admiration and respect.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
“So to bring this back to the topic of the thread, Baskerville cultivated ties with the Religious Right. This more or less excludes ties to more moderate and liberal forces, and therefore hurts the fathers’ movement. So the time has come to put the fathers’ movement back on a more moderate course.”
I started MND as part of my general visceral reaction against the Leftist Cabal in San Francisco that tried to railroad me into a Kafkaesque DV/Divorce/Child Custody nightmare. That reaction drove me into the arms of the only apparent political alternative – the conservatives.
At this point – especially in observing the dismal failures and lies of the Bush administration in action over the past 7 years – I am ready for a change. (I have even publicly called for Bush to step down.)
But what’s left? The Democrats are no friends of mine; they are walking, talking Stalinists who are clearly beholden to the feminist cultural juggernaut. They are institutionally corrupt, and have no ideals beyond the raw acquisition of power and rule of purchased justice.
The Republicans seem not much better, frankly – the Bush administration operates similarly by filling high government positions with their CRONIES rather than qualified statesmen. (the dim Harriet Myers on the U.S. Supreme Court???? Alberto Gonzales – a corrupt mental midget – as the U.S. Attorney General???? Gag me with a fork.)
Tell me who’s left, Richard?
BTW – I don’t know what evidence you have to claim that professor Baskerville has “cultivated ties with the Religious Right”…. or even what that allegation is supposed to mean, or how it could possibly detract from seeking the fundamental rights of those fathers and other men whose lives have been systematically turned upside down by brutal family courts and evil prosecutors across this country and the rest of the western world.
Jim Peterson
But why would Dr. Baskerville have NOT noticed as the Heritage Foundation got filled with feminists like Erica Little and Karen Czarnecki during his tenure?
Why did he NOT notice that the churches were branding men sex offenders and agreeing with women when they made false rape charges?
Did he see Karen Czarnecki, who spent years at the Heritage Foundation advising conservatives whom to HIRE FOR THEIR STAFFS, in the following video:
How can anyone listen to her denigrate “traditional marriage” like that?
Does Dr. Baskerville share the feminist hatred of their foreign competition so much as to agree with Karen Czarnecki, the Bush and Reagan girl, that it is better to marry an American career woman (as if Russian women are not involved in big careers in Moscow and St. Petersburg)?
Anti-Male and Anti-Traditional-Wife ideology go hand in hand.
Dr. Baskerville should have been asking for arch-conservative Senator Sam Brownback’s resignation when the senator went on Vatican Radio with this horrifying slander of American men who want to get married:
It sounds like Dr. Baskerville tried to run an organization on too narrow a focus, one of what happens only when one gets divorced with children, which only sets the opposition up to divide and conquer.
If he noticed Republican politicians not helping him, he might have campaigned against them…which would make his organization more neutral.
I think the main problem with the MRM is that the Republicans saw the movement as fully in the conservative fold…and therefore in need of no concessions.
In Election 2008, we have to show that we are up for grabs.
It doesn’t help that several Bushies are posting twice per day at MND about how we need to be rara Republicans because of issues unrelated to men’s rights (the War on Terror is not a men’s rights issue).
That would cause a guy like Rove to look at MND and think “Looks like these guys don’t need any coddling or concessions. Let’s go try to win over some women to vote for us”.
Meanwhile, getting back to the narrow focus concept of fighting for men’s rights:
Misandry has to be opposed on a broad bipartisan basis the way Glenn Sacks and Marc Rudov do it (except I would not bother fighting to get American women to pay for dinner on the first date the way Rudov demands).
Jim Peterson
In any negotiation one has to show that he can take it or leave it if he wants to win.
I recommend two new books: “The Undercover Economist” and “Freakonomics”.
This is where the idea of a marriage strike comes in. When demand falls, the other side makes concessions naturally.
ÃÂt is not as if American feminists have ANY social power unless we grant it to them.
Do women pay to go to expensive black tie balls in DC or do they wait for some man to pay?
Everyone knows the answer.
So, under a strike scenario, all the women at a black tie ball in Washington could, therefore, end up being non-Americans.
The opposition already knows it is being locked out of social occasions like this and that is why IMBRA and VAWA were passed to block the competition.
With the competition firmly blocked, they can then tell men that they have to be rich in order to date them and then they can later marry and divorce the man and take the kids and the house and alimony payments…and permanently empoverish the man so he cannot date another woman (dating costs money).
We all know the phrase “Women, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them”. But I have never heard the phrase “American women, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them”.
It is simple economics and Negotiation 101 to let the other side know that there are other options on the table for you.
Watch the Scandinavian blonde 22 year old in this video feel sad that American men are apparently convinced that she is “second best”:
Why do we let the feminists stigmatize any man who would fly to Scandinavia to make her feel less lonely?
You cannot signal to American women “You are the best in the world” and expect them not to walk all over you politically.
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
@Mike LaSalle: Dude, you really like to play word games, don’t you? “Creationism” isn’t the idea that things are created. it’s the idea that all the plant and animal species we have today were created by God just as they are. The “Religious Right” isn’t an abstraction equivalent to “Religious Left”, it’s an organized political movement directed by an organization called the “Christian Coalition”. And while it’s theoretically possible for there to be a “Muslim Coalition”, it’s not something that exists in America. Baskerville’s ties to Phyllis Schlafly are well-known and don’t need to be argued.
While there are some Democrats who subscribe to a Stalinist agenda, there are many more who don’t; and while there are some Republicans who subscribed to a Taliban agenda, there are many more who don’t.
When I was lobbying for better child custody and child support laws in Sacramento, I found enough moderates in both parties to pass a few bills. If I had more time and money, I could have done more, but I reached the limits of volunteer-supported activism in a few short years. The FR movement runs on the backs of a few dedicated volunteers, and they quickly burn out. The movement’s enemies have created institutional structures that allow them to show up in the halls of government year after year, and they essentially win most of their victories by default.
The FR movement is full of people who have nothing to offer but extreme statements, bluster, bravado, and empty rhetoric. This isn’t helpful in the long run. Every activist of any stripe believes their cause to be just and moral, so that’s not the end of the story, it’s only the beginning.
Dads, like every other group seeking change, need to organize, contribute financially, volunteer when they can, and dig in for the long haul. Organizations need focus, consistency, and commitment.
And I’m frankly surprised that you had such a bad time with the family courts in Frisco. I live in the Bay Area myself, and my experience is that it’s easier for a dad to get joint custody in Frisco and Marin than anywhere else. It must have been the DV charge that did you in, because they are very sensitive to that. California’s first battered women’s center was started in Frisco by lesbian activist Del Martin, and they had 20 years to influence local politics before any of the men knew what was happening.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
“And I’m frankly surprised that you had such a bad time with the family courts in Frisco.”
it was an absolute nightmare. The DV case was empty from the get-go, but the state apparatus was skewed against me at every juncture, right from the moment the police officers arrived at my house. With no physical evidence besides my wife’s words, the SF city police arrested me on charges of domestic violence and child endangerment. Since the arrest occurred on a Saturday night, that meant that I was incarcerated in the city jail until I was released by a judge on my own recognizance by Monday night.
I was then completely barred from visiting or even speaking to my 4-year old son for the next 2 and a half months.
Later, the family court judge allowed me to visit my son once per week for one hour under the microscope of “the rally project”, where bent young college-age feminists scowled at me and wrote down my every move. (The Rally Project was overseen by a full-blown femininazi nut job named Nadine Blaschak-Brown.)
The fact that the domestic violence charge was a fraud did not trouble the prosecutor’s office — much. However, to their credit, the first attorney assigned to the case, after interviewing both myself and my estranged wife, decided that there wasn’t much to prosecute, and recommended to her superiors that the case be dismissed. When my wife found out about that, she went straight to the head of the DV prosecutor’s department and a NEW prosecutor was assigned to the case with the express marching orders to get me on SOMETHING – anything.
Somewhere along the line, the child endangerment charge was dropped. Finally, I agreed to plead guilty to “DISTURBING THE PEACE”, and made a $250 contribution to a charity of my choice. I chose the CHILDREN’S RIGHTS COUNCIL in DC. (David Levy sent me a nice note after I made the contribution. I think he was suitably impressed when I wrote to him about the context of the contribution.
The arrest occurred in April of 1995, and my guilty plea to DISTURBING THE PEACE was made in the criminal court the following October. From April to July, the family court forbade me to see or speak with my child. From July 1995 to January 1996, I was only allowed to see my son one hour per week and only inside the grotesque bowels of the Rally Project.
The judge did allow me to see my son unescorted for 8 hours on Christmas Day, 1995. (As we drove toward the Caldicott Tunnel on the way back that night, I remember my son looking up at the stars from his booster seat. “Look, dad,” he said. “It’s snowing on the moon.” I’ll never forget those words as long as I live.)
After January, 1996, the judge dropped Rally, and I was allowed to see my child for 5 hours every Saturday. It was not for months after that that I was allowed over nights.
To make a long story short, the judge finally ordered a psychological evaluation of the family. The evaluator produced his report in September, 1996. The report concluded that the mother was a vindictive parental alienator intent on using the courts to destroy me and my relationship with my child.
Well, of course the judge STILL wasn’t convinced, and he ordered a full blown trial.
The trial lasted 10 days — from November 1996 to April, 1997 — when the judge finally awarded custody of my son to me, two full years almost to the day since the day I was arrested on false charges of domestic violence. (Later, I got a signature from a judge declaring that I was FACTUALLY INNOCENT of the charges for which I was arrested that day.)
Naturally, my ex filed an appeal with a new lawyer – which costs thousands more to defend and finally defeat.
Understand that my family was not wealthy at all. My wife and I both made about $30,000 each per year. Though she has two BA’s and a Master’s Degree, her day job was as a clerk at a pharmacy, and I had a job as a wage slave at a company in downtown San Francisco.
The financial devastation was incredible.
And of course, it went on. My ex was not happy with the outcome of any of this, and over the ensuing years she continued to stalk me and harass me with frivolous attempts to get custody of my son once again. She would called CPS anonymously and make stupid accusations that got everyone flustered, but again it would amount to nothing. (She even got a boyfriend who was a lawyer and who was a clerk for judges at the California court building in downtown San Francisco. He helped her study the law and file insane declarations about what a bad fellow I was to have won my family law case.)
And so it goes.
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
Thanks for sharing your story, Mike, it’s sobering. Unlike many stories of false allegations I’ve heard, it appears that at the end of the day, the system worked for you. It’s certainly a shame that you had to undergo all the hardship and expense, but you did prevail in the end. So I’d have to say that the Frisco Democrat who did you the most harm was your ex-wife.
Do you agree?
amfortas
“The FR movement is full of people who have nothing to offer but extreme statements, bluster, bravado, and empty rhetoric. This isn’t helpful in the long run. ”
Hmmmm.
When I was a young fellow, based in the Far East, I was bused down-town one night to be in a riot squad. The natives (Singaporeans in this instance. Culturally high up on the chain) wrere rioting in the city. Several thousand of them. Armed with machetes and handguns.
The Riot Squad is a funny animal. A square of guys, ten across. The outer wall is armed with rifles, the inner ‘fill’ had all sorts of tasks. Some had rattles, some drums, some bugles. (OK, we Brits are a wierd folk). Some had banners in different languages. Megaphoes were given to the Orficers in the middle. (I suppose today a ghetto blaster with heavy metal tune and a speech by Al Gore would be used). We had a copy of the Riot Act to broadcast firmly.
“By the powers invested in me by the ….. I order you to cease and desist. Disperse, or we will open fire”, etc.
The noise generated was supportive of the close order drill, the short stepped, stomp of the advance, the raised rifles. We lads, fewer than 100. mostly armed with noise making paraphernalia, faced a crowd of nearly three thousand. We looked a great deal more powerful than we were. We sounded cacophanous for a good half hour. Then it only took a few shots to be fired and the crowd turned and ran.
There are some good points one can find for bluster and bravado.
Many in the MRM make a lot of noise, and do little else. But that is far better than silence. Their noise gives ‘fill’ to the warriors on the face.
This forum is showing that amongst the bluster and extreme statements, the bravado and bluster, there are clear messages of public authority. What is missing in the MRM is a show of power, the intent of force. What has been missing is the deployment of force.
I like the ideas generated here for using YouTube and the like to get messages across. Is that ‘rhetoric’? ‘Bluster’? Are the signs on Ray’s Ute, just empty /extreme statements?
But how do we know when the mob WE face, turns and runs? Because that’s the measure of usefulness of any action that the MRM takes, jointly and severally or individually.
In determining what an effective and acceptible reponse from the feminised authorities is, what do we want to see? A Court ‘win’ here? A major piece of legislation defeated there? A major pro-men/pro father piece of legislation introduced in this country or that? A recanting by someone ‘famous’. What?
Will that make any change in the deep-rooted antipathy to men’s plight that has taken root? Will a ‘win’ of such proportion deter thirty thousand lawyers from seeing a ‘family’ as a source of his next yacht. Will the removal of IMBRA change the hearts of twenty five thousand biased Judges and DAs when a false allegation is made? Will a massive increase in incarcerated spouse-murdering wives of pastors change the literature and sermons of the Church manginas?
The only person so far to have put the fear of God into a bunch of Judges and Lawyers, is Darren Mack.
Ray Blumhorst
“In order to shop for the right judge, we would need 5 or 6 pro se plaintiffs to launch a challenge against VAWA and Title IX noting that domestic violence and sexual harrassment are not federal issues.”
Mr. Peterson:
Title IX has also been used to reduce or eliminate male sports programs/classes to a percentage figure that is in agreement with the percentage of men and women enrolled in the college/university.
Would a part of your Title IX lawsuit against a taxpayer funded (public) college or university address the issue of a lack of men’s studies programs/courses, where women’s studies programs/courses are offered?
Ray Blumhorst
“And no thanks at all to the wicked, evil, twisted, sick, monstrous professional feminists, judges, social workers, psychologists and blood-sucking lawyers who all profited, took home their paychecks, and drove their BMWs home in empty, useless satisfaction while my family twisted in their stinking wind for years.
And all San Francisco Democrats – every damn one of them.”
Thanks for sharing that Mike. One thing rings true most clearly from your story, “The system does not work.” It is a corrupt, evil shell of it’s former self.
I voted for Bill Clinton twice, but now I consider the Democrat party to be one of the pruest hate movements ever to exist on American soil.
IMO, Police, Prosecutors and Judges are trained by biased gender feminist trainers through VAWA STOP grants to be misandrist bigots and they are – overwhelmingly.
IMO, domestic violence, mandatory arrest, police policy is the beginning of the corrupt domestic violence witch-hunt for many innocent, battered men. Mandatory arrest is code for “Arrest the man.” Mandatory arrest is also police code for “excuse the violent woman,” and “arrest the battered man.” Mandatory arrest is also police code for “never prosecute female false accusers,” because it’s bad for gender feminist power and control over domestic violence law (and thereby police officer careers).
http://www.glennsacks.com/nowhere_to_go.htm “Crime statistics indicate large imbalances in the number of domestic violence incidents against men and women largely because, as studies have shown, an abused woman is many times more likely to report abuse than an abused man. Many men hesitate to call the police because they assume, very often correctly, that the police will automatically treat them as if they are the perpetrator.”
# If the police spent as much time looking for real evidence of domestic violence as they do looking for rationalizations to fit their gender profiling prejudices,
# If the police spent as much time looking for real evidence of domestic violence as they do fabricating evidence to fit their gender profiling prejudices,
# If the police spent as much time looking for real evidence of domestic violence as they do destroying (or ignoring) real evidence to fit their gender profiling prejudices,
then there wouldn’t be nearly so many men wrongfully arrested for domestic violence,
then their wouldn’t be nearly so many men having hate crimes committed against them under color of law, then there wouldn’t be nearly so many men having their lives destroyed by false accusations of domestic violence,
then there wouldn’t be nearly so many violent and vicious women excused and rewarded for the domestic violence they commit against men.
IMO, we have the domestic violence industry’s gender biased, domestic violence trainers largely to thank for the hate war being waged against America’s men by gender feminist trained police, prosecutors and judges (the unholy trinity). America’s police, prosecutors and judges (the unholy trinity) are trained by biased gender feminists to be man-hating bigots, and they are – it bears repeating.
“‘Domestic violence activist Greg Schmidt, a police lieutenant who created the Seattle police department’s domestic violence investigation unit in 1994, says that cases like Erickson’s demonstrate the way men are often presumed guilty in domestic disputes. He notes that mandatory arrest laws, such as California’s, frustrate police officers because they are “expected to make arrests in petty incidents, often where the woman is the aggressor, the abuse is mutual, or it is unclear who the aggressor was.”
“The domestic violence industry–the trainers, the shelter directors, etc.–can spin things however they want,” he says, “but most street cops know that women are just as likely to start domestic disputes as men are. But arresting women puts you under lot of scrutiny. It’s bad for your career.”
Schmidt also criticizes the dominant aggressor doctrine which discourages dual arrests (which are often an appropriate measure) and instructs police to downplay who struck the first blow. Instead, police are asked to focus on who is (supposedly) in control of the situation and who is more fearful–often code words for “arrest the man.”
Part of the problem is the training that police officers receive from the domestic violence industry, which insists that 95% of domestic violence is committed by men. Southern California domestic violence consultant $$$$ $$$$$, who has conducted over 500 domestic violence trainings of police officers and commanders, judges, district attorneys, and victim advocates, tells her trainees that “if a police officer is arresting more than 8% women, you’ve got a real problem. When an officer arrests 12% or 15% women, I’m outraged.” $$$$ says that dual arrests should occur in no more than 3% of incidents.”‘
http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2005/0316blumhorst.html “Why, oh why, should that be the case? Shouldn’t the police be arresting people based on the evidence they find, and not on some arbitrary goal established by domestic violence industry trainers who advocate “arrest goals” for men?”
IMO, Police, prosecutors and judges are all trained (indoctrinated) into Stalinist, gender feminist ideology through STOP grants funded by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Police with their Stalinist mandatory arrest policy, and/or prosecutors with their no drop/mandatory prosecution policy: fabricate, destroy, and withhold evidence as it suits their profiling prejudices and career motivations. Mike Nifong’s corrupt actions against males, weren’t an exception in America’s legal system, rather they’re the rule.
JIMO, udges (like the devil personified) add refinement to the depth of the deception, with the ultimate hypocrisy carried out through court room deception, wherein they pretend to dispense justice. The judge carries out his unconstitutional rape of constitutional law, knowing full well the systematic misandry that has lead to his courtroom and the lack of due process that is taking place. Once inside the Judges Star Chamber, this black robed Satan, merely serves as a pimp for gender feminist laws/totalitarianism, dispensing decisions in compliance with the wishes of the gender feminist court watchers – unless you’ve got some really big bucks to head off the onrushing train wreck..
IMO, Like pimps who sell their whores, Judges in domestic violence cases are ultimately just low-life street hustlers all dressed up in fancy clothes, a mockery of all people who actually have class, integrity and a sense of justice. America’s judges pimp the corrupt domestic violence laws of America, showing only concern for the fat paychecks they get and showing no concern for any sense of justice for innocent, falsely accused men. America’s judges pimp the corrupt domestic violence laws of America, showing no concern for the violent women who they not only excuse, but reward for their criminal behavior.
America now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, having passed Russia, and 93% of the prison population is male. Jerry Brown, CA’s present AG has stated the following,
“So we are being systematically trained to fear this false “rising crime” tide. This is all part of a system to lock up more people [men], and impose more control and surveillance.†– “Jerry Brown on Crime Control.†October/November 1995. http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/index.html.
and
“But the dark evil geniuses who run this country have figured out another use for these surplus people – arrest them in the war on drugs or the war on crime and put them into prison, adding to the gross domestic product!†“Jerry Brown on Crime Control.†October/November 1995. http://www.sonic.net/~doretk/index.html
and
“The U.S. incarceration binge is not tied to crime. It’s a strategy to control the surplus population in a capitalist system that is breaking down.†Waldman, Peter. “Back to Earth: Jerry Brown, the Voice of New-Age Populism, Gets Down to Business.†Wall Street Journal. August 10, 1999.
The motto on the side of every LAPD police car in Los Angeles says, “To Protect and to Serve,” but I say they are:
“Too Prejudiced to Protect,
Too Corrupt to Serve,
Too Incompetent to Care.”
Every police car also has a bumper sticker that says, “There’s No Excuse for Domestic Violence,” but that bumper sticker makes a liar out of every cop who ever sits in a LAPD police car. Primary aggressor policy, using the gender feminist, gender-profiling model, excuses all kinds of female initiated domestic violence. Patriarchal, power and control profiling of domestic violence, wherein it is assumed that men have the power makes every LAPD domestic violence arrest highly suspect, and it likely makes approximately 35% of LAPD domestic violence arrests nothing more than hate crimes committed under color of law. When Nazis were asked at the Nuremberg trails in WWII, why the committed the atrocities they committed, they replied they were just being “Good German Soldiers” (following their Nazi training). It wasn’t an acceptable excuse then, and it’s not an acceptable excuse now. How much more at fault are the elected representatives in authority over America’s evil domestic violence soldiers?
MensIssuesObserver
To Richard Bennett: “When I was lobbying for better child custody and child support laws in Sacramento, I found enough moderates in both parties to pass a few bills. If I had more time and money, I could have done more, but I reached the limits of volunteer-supported activism in a few short years. The FR [Father’s Rights] movement runs on the backs of a few dedicated volunteers, and they quickly burn out.â€Â
You are so dead right it’s painful. Unfortunately, knowing EXACTLY what the problem is has yielded NO progress whatsoever towards a solution.
Michael Robinson is a full time Men’s Issues Lobbyist in Sacramento pounding the marble floors under the California Alliance for Families and Children (CAF&C) banner. To my knowledge, he is the only men’s issues advocate lobbying state legislatures anywhere in the United States. He notches successes here and there that benefit men, women, husbands, fathers, and children but those bent on the destruction of the above field teams of people with millions of dollars to spend. In contrast, the Men’s Movement throws pennies at Michael’s feet in support. We can only dream of what could be done if our sole lobbyist was properly funded.
Without a doubt Michael will join Dick Bennett and many others leaving the front lines in frustration at the Men’s Issues Activists failure to coalesce into a cohesive force to combat the widespread attack on men, boys, husbands, fathers, and children. Michael is effective. Kraft Foods will hire him at six times what he is paid now and pretty soon Arnold will be signing a proclamation making June “Mayonnaise Month.†Lovely. Just lovely.
The September-December timeframe is very important as that is when the legislators get together and write up the proposed legislation that you will see introduced the first six weeks of next year. The bills get written, supporters and co-signers are brought on board, the message gets refined, and opposition comments get neutralized. After February 23, 2008, you might as well hold your breath and hunker down for another year of BS.
Please contribute something for at least this time frame so we can impact next year’s legislation.
Second, encourage Stephen Baskerville to drive the ACF&C to the forefront of advocacy for ALL men’s issues.
MensIssuesObserver
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
I’m not really much of an organizational man. I’ve attended fathers’ rights group meetings as a visitor and presenter. It looked to me as though leading – or even getting a significant group of people in a room together (often I saw from all over the state, and even from all over the country – with visitors from abroad) – takes a very special talent. I don’t know that I’d last 5 minutes attempting to lead a national organization. Feelings are strong, people are entrenched. It amazes me to see mild mannered professionals and intellectuals doing a job well when it seems fit only for a Klingon.
What I wish to add to the current discussion is that the fathers’ rights battle in the US is one of the most difficult battles in the world. You need to review occasionally and take notice of change. A few years ago, fathers’ rights advocates in the US were an isolated bunch facing a total lack of public understanding or interest. Today, Stephen is a regular guest on conservative radio, explaining the demise of family and the corrupt system that brought it about to a receptive audience. He is in persuasive company, now that a broader spectrum of successful pundits get it.
Stephen’s writing – and there has been a lot of it – cultivated the national discussion that now exists. I hope his new book hits the best-seller list. Here’s an idea for a national education drive – go sell the book door to door if need be. Discuss it on the internet. Show up with cases of it at county fairs. Ask for it repeatedly in book stores. Mention it on radio call in shows. Write an editorial with quotes from the book for your local newspaper. etc.
When does all this politics turn into results? From what I have heard, it already has – but the job is far from finished. There’s an election in a year. I know politicians are good at ducking issues. It’s difficult to get politicians in the US to react to the concerns of real people. They are distant, isolated, disconnected, political party insiders whose decisions affect us – but who often don’t care enough about that effect to understand the legislation they sign. Having a real national discussion that will swing votes in relation to real issues and positions is another very difficult part of one of the most difficult battles in the world.
But I think you can do that, and I think that Stephen Baskerville is definitely one of the most important elements in getting it done. As much as I believe in the potential for success; I will be convinced that it will happen if leadership is accepted and a plan is carried out with broad support of the members. A thousand voices expressing a thousand opinions makes a lot of noise. A thousand voices chanting in unison makes a point.
conservativation
Fear of the RR is a distraction. It feels good to reject the beliefs of us ignorant sods I guess, but when you do it and demonstrate that you know next to nothing about us it is downright offensive.
I am squarely in that camp. And NOWHERE in preponderance do I see the characteristics you describe. Sure, the church is not helping the cause. But why do you think conservatives take on what appears to be counter FR or MRM positions? I can tell you. It’s fear of women, feminists, and the assuagement of guilt (undeserved in the first place). So when the one brave enough to speak out says what he says it is bound to then be construed as extreme in the other direction.
Pointing out that Mike L’s wife was the culprit in his drama is silly. Of course she was one, but stating shock at difficulty with San Fran courts and claiming them to be somehow family friendly is beyond ridiculous.
Mike said he’d followed your work awhile and I gathered he had respect for it. If that work represents fear of Christians based on media driven stereotypes, and somehow coddling up to liberals as the saviors in the FR movement, I dare say you’ve wasted gigabytes of good space in servers the world over. As Mike stated, using current events, and especially using Bush as your Christian whipping boy, then concluding the RR is fraught with “issues†is fallacious to the extreme.
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
Good to hear from you Roger. Hopefully you are keeping Swedish Parliament apprised of problems associated with androgyny and matrifocal societies.
I concur with your comments regarding Stephen and his new book. If every activist out there made it their goal to get a copy of Taken Into Custody and/or Save the Males in the hands of every federal and state politician and bring the contents into political debate change would result. Instead we nitpick the differences of opinion and fail to spread the word as conveyed by the best minds attempting to motivate change.
The idea that ACFC board can’t support or promote Stephen’s book is symptomatic of the egotistical divide that has plagued our cause for decades.
HOW LONG CAN WE CONTINUE TO FORM CIRCULAR FIRING SQUADS?
When are we going to understand that men and women THINK in completely different ways and the male way leads to independent and divergent conclusions while the female thought pattern leads to unified and convergent conclusions?
Consider the following paragraph taken from “Biology of Gender:†(Personal emphasis in bold.)
Richard J. Haier and colleagues at the universities of New Mexico and California (Irvine) found, using brain mapping, that men have more than six times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly ten times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men (Haier, Rex E Jung and others, ‘Structural Brain Variation and General Intelligence’, NeuroImage 23 (2004): 425–433). “These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior,” according to Haier. Gray matter is used for information processing, while white matter consists of the connections between processing centers.
If men could simply agree on any common ground and put the position in the political limelight, our situation would be significantly improved.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
Hello Lloyd. I’ve been quoted lately in The Washington Times critisizing Sweden’s past. I was misquoted. In my last meeting with the same author, I gave a very positive review of the Swedish political system. The political problems of Swedish fatherhood are – well – quite minor compared to what you’re used to. They actually have family values here and have even gone so far with the shared parenting concept as to divide government support benefits based on time with children.
That men and women are different is quite well documented. New born baby girls look at faces. Boys look at things. And you’ll be hard pressed to find many girls pushing toy cars around making motor noises. Listen to the stories of men and women (and girls and boys for that matter). As your reference suggests, men relate to events and come to a point. Women ramble on (it seems to us) making connections – she said, he did – seems completely random to most men most of the time. That this even seems to be a subject of debate tells us something about the bizarre impact of the feminist movement.
I didn’t know about the ACFC decision not to promote Stephen’s book. I guess I may have stepped into a hot spot without realizing. Communicating is a fundamental requirement of an effective fathers’ rights movement. It just seemed – and I feel quite justified in saying this as a men – logical.
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
conservativation, your comment is instructive regarding the self-aggrandizing nature of the Christian Right. My comments about that group simply emphasize its lack of political utility for fathers. As one commenter summarized, I said they’ve failed fathers.
From that rather common-sense observation, you go off the deep end clucking about “fear of the RR” and asserting a claim that the “RR is fraught with “issues— and claiming “fear of Christians based on media driven stereotypes.” Get a grip on yourself and stop projecting your persecution anxieties. I don’t care about your religious beliefs one way or another. Whether you want to worship a one-eyed unicorn with pink polka dots, a zombie vampire, or a chubby man in a fur-lined red suit who rides a sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, it’s all the same to me. I just want to get family law reformed in the US and I don’t care who does it or how as long as it makes life better for fathers and children.
To put it very simply, the Christian Right doesn’t have the power to get any major law passed in America, so whether I fear it, stereotype it, or whip it is not important. The Christian Right is no longer a relevant political force.
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
Richard – if you want an author account on MND, just say the word. Your long history in this movement is certainly known by me. While I may not agree with everything you say, I do in fact have the utmost respect for you, and I would be privileged if you became an MND contributing author.
On matters of religion and science, I expect you and I have some disagreement as well. I have made my position fairly clear over the last few years, but if you need a primer, check out my blog http://bicameraluniverse.com , as well as these articles below (and also located on the home page of MND – bottom of the left-hand column).
In short, I stand with professor Frank Tipler (who is an acknowledged peer of both Stephen Hawking and David Deutsche), and his Omega Point Theory establishing the existence of God.
Paranoia and persecution complex are not problems for me. From your posts, in which mention the the ineffectiveness and marginality of the Christian RR is ubiquitous, you then feel the need to state how you really don’t given the RR a second thought…they are off your radar screen, irrelevant, I’d just wonder about why you spent so much time or even mentioned “them” at all.
Certainly I didn’t even hint at a defense of the faith, which would have indicated I had the smallest curiosity as to what my beliefs are…I don’t care.
Further, if you don’t care who reforms family law, then why not write a straight advocacy piece, not spending time explaining why this group or that group would be less effective or how so and so has been detrimental. If there is one person in a group of a thousand pulling your way, let em pull, or rather the baby hit the pavement in the bathwater?
Its good to see such an overt show of solidarity with like minded folks there Richard.
“I just want to reform family law, but this bunch and that bunch and oh those other fellows cannot and will not do it, so me and my hand picked posse will get r done”
Not hard to see what Baskerville and Usher talk about with egos and conflicting agendas getting in the way when this so called movement gets its so called leaders together.
Geez.
harry
I agree wholeheartedly with amfortas.
Until the MM starts to generate heat, precious little will change.
Furthermore, this heat also needs to come through the media – internet included – because it will bring about further action.
As such, I want to see more people like Mike LaSalle, Glenn Sacks and Marc Rudov pushing and pushing because they are sparking the movement.
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
Ultimate wisdom of Stephen Baskerville is shown by his lack of participation this thread. There is no need to waste time arguing with those that have a different approach. Too many have wasted years lashing out at those who have a different opinion including those that insist on speaking with authority, but can’t simply read others points of view without an attack response or prohibiting a response.
The majority of progress towards men’s/father’s rights in the last two decades has come from individual efforts, not from groups. Wise individuals can make progress with or without mass support.
“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge, arguments an exchange of ignorance.†– Robert Quillen
“I don’t have to attend every argument I’m invited to.†– Anon
“He who is not aware of his ignorance will be only misled by his knowledge.â€Â Richard Whatley
“A leader knows what’s best to do; a manager knows merely how best to do it.†– Ken Adelman
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
Thanks for the offer, Mike, if I ever have anything I want to publish I’ll take you up on it. I appreciate what you’ve done with MND and all the hard work that goes into it. You’ve created a remarkable forum here for wide-ranging discussion and it’s very valuable.
On the theological matters I’ve never understood the rationale for scientific proofs or disproofs of God. To me, it’s all a matter of definition: I can define God so that he exists, and I can define God so that he doesn’t. As the proofs ride on the definitions, they don’t advance the argument any.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
I’m a little out of touch maybe – way over here – but my impression is that the outspoken public religious right organizations (such as FRC) dropped their support for the federal child support enforcement program a few years ago; not long after Stephen’s article “A Primer Against Gay Marriage,” a review of the book; “Outrage.”
I was a little dumbfounded when I discovered that so few people saw the destruction of marriage coming. But when it was no longer possible for sane people to rationalize and imagine other explanations for what was happening, you got some natural allies. It’s not time to think about excluding political bedfellows, no matter how strange you think they might be. It’s always time to expand. The religious right carries more weight with Republicans, but they aren’t really heavy political players. I don’t think so anyway.
http://bennett.com/blog Richard Bennett
The Christian Coalition has been in disarray* ever since Ralph Reed left. They have a DC office and state offices, and there’s more or less open hostility between DC and some of the states. We saw this recently on the Net Neutrality issue, where Roberta Combs of DC joined the Moveon.org-lead coalition but several of the states joined the other side. We’re also seeing splits between new evangelists like Rick Warren and the old school on issues such as Global Warming. And your new evangelists tend to be more Oprah-fied than the old school.
But the main point about the CC and the RR in general is that they have a reputation for not playing well with others, and their mere presence in your coalition will drive potential coalition partners away. So unless they have the juice to push your issue on their own, it’s best not to play with them.
And as for opposition to gay marriage, wasn’t that the signature issue of Ted Haggard, um, before he was busted by his, um, gay prostitute? I’m not sure that’s such a credible issue any more.
*Note: This is a political analysis, not a spiritual one.
hmh1497
Religion is an important component in our fight for our children. It cannot be isolated. Both Adams and Jefferson would agree using arguments from the right and left, that religion is essential. We are talking about the natural right of children to be raised by their own parents. God knows that the subject will be debated for millenniums. It has been debated since Adam and Eve, why would it change now. Many have deep held beliefs about life and what they know about why we’re here, and where we’re all going. It will be discussed for eternity.
I know one thing for sure about humans. We are descendents of our ancestors; and that, our genome matches nearly exactly to the parents that gave birth to us. This science is new to the world, and understandably not wholly grasped; especially in the halls of religious doctrine. It throws a wrench into their heaven and hell fear mongering.
Our cause includes divorce reform, gay marriage, immigration reform, adoption, foster care, embryonic stem cell research and most any other social dilemma that seeks to violate the basic rights of parents and children. Those that have myopic views, who err on the side of oppression rather than freedom, I fear have only their self-interests to serve. Most are beholden to the bar, others to tyrannical principles, but many are just not yet informed. All of us have a right to be raised by our own 2 parents.
Adams said it best in his Thoughts on Government, “IF there is a form of government then, whose principle and foundation is virtue, will not every sober man acknowledge it better calculated to promote the general happiness than any other form?â€Â
“FEAR is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men, in whose breasts it predominates, so stupid, and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.â€Â
And Jefferson wrote in his last few days, “May it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings & security of self government. That form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man.â€Â
I know we must be inclusive of all people, including the religious zealots, and including the brain dead pansies that refuse to fight for all the principles that Adams and Jefferson gave their lives. Our fundamental rights belong to us, and as long as those left-coast weenies keep trying to extol the virtues of good government and their wonderful power to grant rights to me; I’ll be here to remind them that we all own our rights. And, they are worth fighting for, for all eternity.
I think the naysayer should get out of the way or voice his support for Baskerville. This thread plainly proves that his leadership is right for all of us.
And as for politicians, Adams wrote another pearl: “[The people] have a right … to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers.â€Â
– A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
John Adams: wrote in an official document of the U.S. Government that “The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” – signed the Treaty of Tripoli (June 7, 1797).
Steven Morris writes:
The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration. It was read aloud to the Senate, and each Senator received a printed copy. There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty. It was reprinted in full in three newspapers – two in Philadelphia, one in New York City. There is no record of public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.
Thomas Jefferson: The third President was, many historians believe, among the most brilliant men ever to occupy the Presidency. Jefferson was often said by his enemies to be an atheist, but he was actually partial to Deism. He believed in a creator, and in the Declaration of Independence refers to “Nature’s God”. Jefferson believed that Nature’s God endowed humanity with inalienable natural rights, such as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” However, “Nature’s God”, in his view, was not to be worshipped through religion, but to be understood by reason and science.
Like other Deists, he did not believe in miracles. At he edited the Gospels to remove references to the miracles of Jesus and material he considered overly religious, leaving only Jesus’ moral philosophy, of which he approved.
“Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.” — Thomas Jefferson to Danbury Baptists, 1802.
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government” (Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December 6, 1813), and, “In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty.
“The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.” –letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823.
“I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology. Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the earth.”
The clergy converted the simple teachings of Jesus into an engine for enslaving mankind and adulterated by artificial constructions into a contrivance to filch wealth and power to themselves…these clergy, in fact, constitute the real Anti-Christ.
from: SIX HISTORIC AMERICANS, by John E. Remsburg, letter to William Short
amfortas
I would be looking at the particular man or particular church group, rather than simply ‘The God issue’. Remember, Judges and Lawyers go to church too and even involve God in their machinations while ripping you off and destroying your family. They even have the nerve to make people swear on God’s word and name to tell the truth, then do everything they can to prevent that.
The shine on the buttons of a soldier’s uniform is not a testament to his prowess with a bayonete.
Jim Peterson
Did Dr. Baskerville mention the Election 2008 in his post?
If not, that might be the problem.
If anyone is being funded to work in the MRM, I also expect them to be specifically bogged down as the plaintiff in several federal challenges as well as state challenges.
Is he the Plaintiff in an ongoing federal challenge now? Against VAWA?
Men who have other careers often cannot do this…although I will have more to say on this later…
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
As I review Steve’s letter it appears there is a new or behind the scenes player on or influencing the ACFC board.
Steve writes: “Many times I have felt that I am being paid to be silent or to mouth well-worn platitudes, to not act, and even to prevent others from acting. I am constantly threatened with loss of pay and dismissal, even in the midst of notable successes, if a single utterance – a word or phrase – fails to conform to some ill-defined orthodoxy.â€Â
Perhaps it’s time we learn who is actually calling the shots and what they are about. Why does it sound like someone with a huge ego, reputation and wealth has joined the ACFC board? I could see a national law firm specializing in representing fathers and seeking referrals opposing some of Steve’s rhetoric but willing to invest in ACFC.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
I find much of the political analysis in the fathers’ rights movement far too philosophical. I don’t think you need to prove the existence of God or check all your judgments against those of the founding fathers. Interesting stuff of course, but how much do you have to add to that to buy a cup of coffee?
Throwing in a small bit of philosophy myself; the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. The discussion should be focused on getting somewhere, shouldn’t it? The way I remember it, there was a day when FR advocates had NO allies. Now you have some, you also have representation debating on CNN and radio, and it looks a lot less like bashing fathers is cheap and easy.
Along with everyone else, I’ve wanted to see progress – more than that – just get the problems solved! I spent years making an effort knowing that I had to put my feelings on hold for a while – fully confident that there was a long road ahead – just pushing along trying to take a step in the right direction. Thanks to the efforts of many people, the situation has changed. There is a possibility that the road ahead is not so very long.
It’s OK that the RR has learned that they were on the wrong side. That’s a good thing. But the validity of your message and goals doesn’t rest on their philosophy. The picture I have in mind of the political map is that you real opposition is a relatively small group of insane political extremists in coalition with corrupt politicians and entrepreneurs who are only smart enough to make a buck if they cheat and steal. The rest of America (and the world) belongs on your side, and they just need enough information to find that out.
I’m glad the RR discovered they were on the wrong side. Congratulations to us all. Who’s next? Forward – keep moving forward.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
Who’s next? My thought is keep it simple. The answer is everybody. Everybody is next.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
To summarize: I never saw any possibility that the opposition to fathers’ rights could win a fair fight. Now that the media is not 100% against you, you have a shot. Go kick their asses.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
How have you guys been doing with getting politicians to show up at meetings to discuss your issues? I’ve seen it done at a state level (P.O.P.S.) and at CRC’s annual conferences – and also outside of FR activities. Haven’t gotten reports from ACFC on that point. It’s something that every state chapter can participate in. During the election season, politicians spend quite a bit of their time meeting with groups of politically active constituents. State politicians sometimes sit in trailers and tents at county fairs to talk to people one at a time. I’ve seen US Senators show up for a group of less than 40. P.O.P.S. got more than 100 people to show up to listen to politicians talk about family law issues more than once – and that was back in the bad days; when many people thought “Evil Empire” referred to men – fathers especially.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
Lloyd; Your comment (109) hits at the heart of why I’m not an organizational man. I’ve been respectful of the need organizations have to keep their reputation clean, and especially so in the days when men / fathers were always the bad guys. A miss-step by ACFC while everyone was looking for confirmation of negative stereotypes would not have been helpful. At the same time though, it suited me better to handle my own risks. Anyone who disagreed with me, could take it up with me; and I’d include a speech about individualism if needed – meaning no – even if you win a point against me – it’s not against all fathers everywhere. The largest fathers’ rights group in the world comes a little closer to the latter.
I think times have changed however – the situation has changed. Doors of opportunity have opened and you’ve got to walk through some of them. It’s time to accomplish more than building an organization (not that nothing’s been accomplished so far).
I’m very concerned about Stephen’s observation that some of the literature being disseminated is on the edge of dishonesty for the sake of ideology. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. The fathers’ rights movement IS ON THE RIGHT SIDE. The TRUTH IS ON YOUR SIDE. The FACTS ARE ON YOUR SIDE. Honest arguments – telling the truth – presents the most powerful argument possible. Thinking too much about political spin produces weaker if not self-defeating positions; positions that are harder to defend – too easily leaving an audience wondering what you’re talking about.
For years – my effort was focused entirely on telling the truth about the new child support system. That’s it in a nutshell – trying to inform people truthfully who were being lied to constantly. There’s no excuse for misrepresenting, and such problems could cause any fathers’ rights organization to slip over to the Dark Side as far as I’m concerned.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
1. Major accomplishments ignored: Basic mistake. Humans are social creatures. Acknowledgment is a basic reqirement.
2. Use of the internet: If you’re not using the internet to your advantage, maybe you’re interested in giving up indoor plumbing too. The internet is the way the modern world works. You might even consider creating a private version of one of these for the ACFC organization: http://developers.facebook.com/
3. Ideological conformity: I don’t think it’s a mistake for an organization to define its purpose and its goals. Sometimes those are more limiting than one would like. Personally, I think ACFC should live up to its name with a broader attack. More to Stephen’s point: be ready to accept and use what you get, otherwise you have nothing to offer. If there are those on the board who feel the organization should “distance itself” – find a way to “tastefully” promote the book — this one seems easy to me.
4. Mrs. Schlafly was intentionally misquoted. I hope I don’t even need to make a specific comment. That was a mistake.
5. Claims of new affiliates … not having any track record as a national organizer, I have no comment really. Sounds like a fiasco.
6. ACFC board meetings … degenerate into complaint sessions: I’d like to see concrete action.
7. Money and time are wasted in pointless travel, unnecessary and …. I’ve seen that in too many organizations. This is a management problem.
8. The expensive Convio software … along with more effective use of the internet, you need a CTO to filter foolish software purchases. You can get all the software you need for free. You don’t even need to pay a monthly fee for your website (although a low monthly fee for space can be the right choice, even that is not the only choice). Expensive software promising results … that’s just a marketing trick.
9. Lack of follow through: Yeah. That’ll burn ya.
I think Stephen needs more control to actually get things done. I’m an outsider, so I don’t have any real insight into the organization. But I know of Stephen’s accomplishments. He can get things done. He can even follow through on a long term strategy. After years of watching him get positive results from what he’s doing, I am confident that giving him more control is a good idea. The president is the actor that is supposed to be driving the organization. The board should oversee but not micro-manage as much. (I guess at least philosophically, I am an organization man – I’ve never seen sloppy use of a hierarchy come to any good.)
conservativation
Such detailed debate about whether of not the nation is Christian, whether or not the so called RR has any power, and such invective regarding faith in general…wow, and coming for someone who doesn’t even care about such irrelevant things.
I’m still not sure why anyone cares if the RR has power or not with regard to the issues we have here. I certainly don’t care, never did, never will, as I have never approached these matters as a member of a group other than the group of men who have been or can be destroyed by the misandry built into the courts. But there is a relevant aspect to the RR debate. First, the RR, as described in the media and no doubt referenced here, does not exist outside a few well known national “leaders”. There are not legions of mindless faith based voters. There are many, but it was never the force for good or bad that many seem to wish to call it. The leadership created an impression of power (Robertson, Falwell, etc.) in some ways the way Jackson and Sharpton create a black voter block impression. In fact they are far more successful at actually getting the group vote than any Christian leader ever was.
But more importantly, the Christian Right, (the nonexistent one) is simply dead wrong on matters of family. From the pulpit in small and large churches to the proclamations of the so called leaders they actually have it all wrong.
So whatever this RR group is, indeed it need be opposed, not supported, as inside the church they create as much problem as the secular whirlwind of misandry.
To take an entire group of people, as many Americans profess some degree of Christian faith, and call their beliefs a myth, and then simply cast them aside as potential advocates to the MRM is suicidal to the movement. Having said that it needn’t mean the MRM look to the elusive RR for a power base. But within it lies a good number of like minded individuals that really want to help and can be helpful.
The intellectual superiority approach will never work.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
conservativation;
I’m interested in getting some of that sorted out – but I agree with you that the discussion is off point. Maybe someone will post a relevant article, and the CR / RR discussion can move there. I know that outspoken CR / RR types did have it wrong – I thought they’d repented for that sin already.
Relevant to this discussion however – ACFC should not have treated Phyllis Schlafly disrespectfully by doctoring her comments. That woman has more integrity than nearly everyone else added up than I’ll ever meet in my lifetime – well, that might be overstating – but you see how easy it is to lower your integrity rating with a little exaggeration. Involving her in some dishonesty is a really bad no no.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
“Major accomplishments by ACFC officers and members are ignored and not even mentioned on the Internet site.”
– I got a plaque from CRC and was honored at an awards banquet, and the whole thing was covered in their newsletter which is distributed on capitol hill – and I’m not even a member.
http://blog.fathersforlife.org/2007/09/14/does-disunity-in-the-fathers-rights-movement-matter/ dads&things » Blog Archive » Does disunity in the fathers-rights movement matter?
[...] We cannot win this fight without an effective broad-based, mass membership organization. That was what I envisioned when I became president of ACFC, and I am still committed to it. But for ACFC to work, we need active involvement from people like you. Please join ACFC and make your voice heard. You might begin by leaving a comment at MensNewsDaily , where this is published: http://mensnewsdaily.com/2007/09/07/serious-problems-at-acfc-an-open-letter-to-the-board/. [...]
GladMadSadDad
My first contributions toward shared parenting went to the Children’s Rights Council. I donated to them for a few years, and attended a Father’s Day Rally in D.C. 2000. Other than a nice newsletter, I didn’t see CRC getting much attention and I stopped donating to them because nothing changed.
I then turned my attention to local groups. I needed an outlet for my frustration and participated in numerous protests under the banner of the Massachusetts Fatherhood Coalition. These were people of action and I began donating to them.
Before long I began to realize that despite our best efforts, nothing was changing. I stopped protesting in person, and started writing letters all over the place. I had something published somewhere at least once a month. This includes USA Today and Parenting magazine. I even was featured in my local paper, front page, in an article about female abusers. Still nothing changed.
For the past two years I have continued to donate to the Fatherhood Coaltion (my most recent check was not cashed and the money was deposited back into my account). I also monitor children and father issues here on MND, but other than an ocassional email, i.e., in support the N/S. Dakota Shared Parenting Initiative, I’m no longer active. Still nothing as changed.
I’ve long been an admirer of Mr. Baskerville’s advocacy for fathers and children. I’ve not been impressed the few times I’ve heard him speak, but nobody is better with the written word. I’ve never donated anything to ACFC as I’ve never seen or heard them contribute anything of significance (at least that I recognized), but I do reserve my limited charitable contributions for organiziations I feel get us closer to a society where shared parenting is the norm.
Who wants my money?
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
Th ACFC’s website makes me a little dizzy. The site invites you to “login” but not easily. Seems to me all new members should be automatically given a login and password to the “private” areas of the site, wherein we suppose more detailed information is available.
Also, I received a flyer from ACFC now that I’m on their mailing list. Good information…. but one does wonder who is doing the operational work behind the scenes….is this stuff getting out to the media? Or is ACFC merely “preaching to the choir”?
RADAR is doing great work on Domestic Violence issues, let’s pull together and support them in this effort.
Tell Your Representative,
Stop the False Accusations, Stop HRES 590!
“…there is no other court in the land where the penalty for perjury does not exist – you can lie repeatedly and not only NOT be punished for it, but actually be rewarded for it. There is no other court where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent. And for non-custodial parents…especially fathers…going through a divorce…and the never-ending litany of custody issues and all the rest that goes with it…it can feel like eternal damnation.”
So says a father of two from New Jersey, who has undergone an ordeal in which he was verbally abused by a judge, physically accosted by police officers, criticized by child welfare officials, shown the door by school administrators, and even turned away by life-long friends.
Situations such as this will be perpetuated by House Resolution 590. It allows for the continued abuse of domestic violence laws, creating a dynamic in which allegations are made solely for the purpose of obtaining an advantage in litigation.
We’re asking you to contact your own Representative and politely ask him or her to say “NO†to HRES 590.
To locate your Representative, go to http://www.house.gov/. At the top, enter your Zip code and look up your Representative’s name, then go to the Representative’s website. Or call the Capitol Switchboard at 1-202-224-3121.
Then leave this message with the Representative’s staff: “It’s time to stop the false allegations of domestic violence. Say ‘No’ to HRES 590!â€Â
To Richard Bennett: “When I was lobbying for better child custody and child support laws in Sacramento, I found enough moderates in both parties to pass a few bills. If I had more time and money, I could have done more, but I reached the limits of volunteer-supported activism in a few short years. The FR [Father’s Rights] movement runs on the backs of a few dedicated volunteers, and they quickly burn out.â€Â
You are so dead right it’s painful. Unfortunately, knowing EXACTLY what the problem is has yielded NO progress whatsoever towards a solution.
Michael Robinson is a full time Men’s Issues Lobbyist in Sacramento pounding the marble floors under the California Alliance for Families and Children (CAF&C) banner. To my knowledge, he is the only men’s issues advocate lobbying state legislatures anywhere in the United States. He notches successes here and there that benefit men, women, husbands, fathers, and children but those bent on the destruction of the above field teams of people with millions of dollars to spend. The Men’s Movement throws pennies at Michael’s feet in support. We can only dream of what could be done if our sole lobbyist was properly funded.
Without a doubt Michael will join Dick Bennett and many others leaving the front lines in frustration at the Men’s Issues Activists failure to coalesce into a cohesive force to combat the widespread attack on men, boys, husbands, fathers, and children. Michael is effective. Kraft Foods will hire him at six times what he makes now and pretty soon Arnold will be signing a proclamation making June “Mayonnaise Month.†Lovely. Just lovely.
The September-December timeframe is very important as that is when the legislators get together and write up the proposed legislation that you will see introduced the first six weeks of next year. The bills get written, supporters and co-signers are brought on board, the message gets refined, and opposition comments get neutralized. After February 23, 2008, you might as well hold your breath and hunker down for another year of BS. Please contribute for at least this time frame so we can impact next year’s legislation.
Second, encourage Stephen Baskerville to drive the ACF&C to the forefront of advocacy for ALL men’s issues.
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
RE 114 Roger writes:
I’m very concerned about Stephen’s observation that some of the literature being disseminated is on the edge of dishonesty for the sake of ideology. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. The fathers’ rights movement IS ON THE RIGHT SIDE. The TRUTH IS ON YOUR SIDE. The FACTS ARE ON YOUR SIDE. Honest arguments – telling the truth – presents the most powerful argument possible. Thinking too much about political spin produces weaker if not self-defeating positions; positions that are harder to defend – too easily leaving an audience wondering what you’re talking about.
I can only add AMEN. Fear of telling the truth for political gain will never succeed. A fundamental mark of leadership is honesty and integrity. Society’s lack of confidence in Congress is directly related to the belief that politicians will say or do anything to keep their office. Who can deny that the fundamental dishonesty of radical feminist “wishful thinking†has not contributed to a significant decrease in the honesty and integrity of the average citizen?
The day when hard factual knowledge was supreme in the universities has been replaced by a time when political correct BS trumps hard factual knowledge. This teaches fundamental dishonesty.
amfortas
Asking for monies to support an organisation is quite legitimate but eventually a wasted gift if that organisation doesn’t do something that multiplies the input and effects a significant change. Many organisations try to be ‘civilised’ and tackle matters through legislators who don’t give a damn, and get nowhere. Some gather and spread information and spearhead email and letter campaigns – with remarkably good effect, as shown by the PBS effort. (There should be a LOT more of that going on). Some forge new means of mass communication and develop a central meetinghouse for news and intelligent discussion and debate. Sacks, RADAR, MND, several sound discussion forums exist and have made inroads into the public conscience. We have first class researchers and courageous writers in Usher, Roberts, Baskerville et al who wield power with their keyboards but still haven’t shaken the rafters let alone the foundations.
But where are the runs on the board? Where are the effective successes? Where are the Standards with battle-honours for us to rally around? Where has there been a signal that the trend in society toward disintegration, family destruction, male/female misunderstanding and toxic relationships have improved/reversed?
Being civilised isn’t the answer when the civil authorities and the mass of hangers-on, the rent-seeker professions, the downright thieving legal establishment simply over-rides and retains the power to ignore.
We are seeing this ‘fight’ in a far too civilised way. Discussion is grand, but ultimately a wasted effort if no change is apparant. This is a war to rescue Western Civilisation before it is so damaged that only replacement rather than refurbishment or evolution can restore the fruits it once so proudly bore. And in a war we sometimes have to do things we would rather not.
We have to bang heads together. Give headaches and heartaches. We need to cause PAIN, where we have previously focused effort on ‘supplication’ to the deaf and diseased minds of uncaring, money grubbing, power-wielding scum who occupy public and professional position.
‘Institutions’ can absorb an awful lot of criticism , mendacious, ineffective debate and distortion. But those institutions have active stakeholders. People who benefit personally simply by being part of those institutions. These people have careers which are funded by the pain and dispossession of others. These people see no wrong in what they do, just as Adolph Eichmann saw no wrong in ‘obeying orders’.
Well chaps (and the occasional chapess) we have to disabuse them of their fantasy. If we are to get anywhere we must make the personal, political. The beneficiaries of the pain of men and families, the same folk who torture us daily, must be made to pay for all their dinners. It is they we have to hit hard. We ought to be looking closely at ways of bringing the pain home to the pain-givers. That would be an effect worth a modest membership fee or contribution.
What we need amongst the sound research into this or that is a dirt-gathering effort. We need to focus on discrediting INDIVIDUALS. They howl louder than an institution that dines every fortnight on caviar. We need to target Judges, lawyers, politicians, Professors, Feminazi group leaders, whoever, and ruin careers, ransack their personal treasuries, destroy their families, alienate them from their friendship groups, wherever. A good objective would be five people per annnum in every State.
The emails and letters and banners and plackards and signs in Utes should be directed at Individuals. Make them hurt. There are plenty of dispossessed guys who have no assets left worth a damn who can front a splendid slander-fest against a Judge or two and dare the bastards to sue.
What is needed to raise the awareness of the great apathetic majority out there are newspaper headlines of this or that Judge or lawyer or whatever getting his/her cumuppence. We can even have monthy ‘Nifong’ awards for men’s group excellence.
Dirt, gentlemen. Career death. Professional disgrace. Financial ruin.
Make the playing so damn costly for the players and maybe we will see the demise of the apalling mafia rort of the family court and the dispersal of all the rent-seeking scum.
harry
Amen Amfortas!
Brother.
http://www.mensdefense.org Lloyd Selberg
RE 121 Mike:
Little question that ACFC is attempting to sell a membership to get access to supposedly useful material. Selling a How To manual is one thing, but the reference material and site access should be free to anyone. Anyone seeking personal help with his case soon learn that paying organization membership will get then no meaningful help. An open cooperative informational area on the ACFC web site should announce the activities of any group that wish to communicate their activities. A leader is not afraid of competition. All will sooner or later adopt the tactics that work.
A spirit of co-operation without criticism of other organizations should be obvious from the web site. Any attempt to tell other men what to do will never work.
“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.†– Edmund Burke
merck
Ninety-five percent, or better, of the victims of this injustice are men, yet the “movement†boasts that 50% of the membership is female.
What’s wrong with that picture? My guess is the 50% women are very “instrumental†in the failures depicted so accurately by Baskerville.
I think “mruffaloâ€Â; (comment #3) has it right. I think it needs to be a “men’s movement†led by people like Steve Baskerville.
I wonder how many of us realize how lucky we are to have a “no-nonsense†leader like Baskerville.
Hang in there Steve. I can’t help thinking that you will give up on ACFC, because I think you are beginning to realize, that you can’t help those who refuse to help themselves.
Maybe it’s time to start your own organization?
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
amfortas: “But where are the runs on the board? Where are the effective successes? Where are the Standards with battle-honours for us to rally around? Where has there been a signal that the trend in society toward disintegration, family destruction, male/female misunderstanding and toxic relationships have improved/reversed?”
Again, I think there is an historical perspective that needs to be presented. I agree that there are many very concrete successes that are missing and needed. Back in the olden days, the major problem that needed to be addressed was getting past the huge and effective propaganda machine – just to have the opportunity to make an argument on behalf of fathers. I think we’re all glad that lying little piece of crap Dan Rather is gone. But he was only one willing host of deception. Years went by when you could hardly pick up any newspaper or magazine, or have the TV on for any length of time wihout experiencing very heavy father bashing – “deadbeat dads,” “deadbeat dads”, “deadbeat dads.” One congressman actually misspoke after 9/11 – sounding overjoyed at the event because the federal government might finally have the opportunity to do some federal business and focus on things like protecting the country instead of the goofy feminist shit (I don’t remember his exact words).
Just getting to the point where the battle isn’t against everyone else in the world – having the opportunity to enter the public discussion – is something – something quite important. I’ve said more than once that I have respected ACFC’s ability to maintain against terrible odds when it comes to public relations and public image. They managed to survive without falling to the idea that they’re the male representation of feminist stupidity; a wonderful job of avoiding the idiots who constantly find the public ear without actually having any knowledge or wisdom to share.
It’s quite important, it seems to me, to realize that things have changed. That same level of defensive awareness is no longer needed. Sure – I don’t mean go out and act foolish. But the doors have opened for a more honest and worthwhile dialogue. And that to me includes going after more concrete successes.
Once again, I’m not much of a political organizer. I run the risk therefore, of merely expressing wishes like everyone else without offering a concrete plan of action to get the job done. So, the wisest part of me says it’s best to throw my support behind someone who I think can come up with a plan and get things done. I’m just sayin’ – times have changed and the analytical side of me keeps saying that the organization should shift along with it to its own advantage and to the benefit of the mission.
Someone should help put this history in perspective. This awareness that the context in which fathers’ rights groups operate is much different than it was when ACFC was younger. The occassional re-assessment and adjustment should be regarded as normal to keep an organization doing the best that it can.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
amfortas said,
“But where are the runs on the board? Where are the effective successes? Where are the Standards with battle-honours for us to rally around? Where has there been a signal that the trend in society toward disintegration, family destruction, male/female misunderstanding and toxic relationships have improved/reversed?
– I don’t know what happened to the long version of my response. Maybe it will show up later. The summary is that times have changed. The overwhelming propaganda campaign against fathers has subsided. You’re in the public discussion. Now that people are listening, you need to tell them what you came to say.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
I may not be much of a political organizer, but I have an idea based on observation. I watched Marc Rudov debating Peter Pollard on CNN (linked to front page MND). It occurred to me that the debate had much in common with other parts of the public discussion – reactions, complaints, about what other people are doing and how they represent males and fathers. I understand that’s a basic concern. Let something go and it snow-balls. Too many people unable to think for themselves jump on whatever band-wagon they perceive is out there.
Anyway – fathers’ rights needs to be on the other side of the debate more often – shaping the discussion rather than merely reacting to others. That observation seems concrete enough without trying to tell everyone else exactly what to do. As I involve myself in this discussion the thoughts are coming in – feels like ever more clearly as I go. I think maybe all the pieces of a more effective public campaign are possible now.
It’s been a long hard fight and it’s not over. I understand people getting tired. I’ve gotten tired many times already and the only defense I’ve had was my initial understanding that it was going to be a long fight. Frustrating still, but understandable enough not to blame others and stomp out in disgust, etc.
But I’m thinking – now more than ever. The time has come. Be stronger, not weaker, etc. Lots of talk, I know. In my lengthy response that failed to post, I mentioned that the wisest part of me thinks I should throw my support behind someone who’ll get results instead of just analyzing the situation to death.
Jim Peterson
Amfortas just made the most relevant statement of this whole thread:
WE MUST INSIST THAT CERTAIN INDIVIDUALS BE RUINED FOR THEIR PART IN THE MISANDRY. Outright misandry must come at a huge cost.
Take Karen Czarnecki, Republican Golden Girl who is constantly invited to the White House and was part of the Reagan administration.
Watch how Karen speaks about American businessmen like me whose export sales to other countries keep a million American families fed:
This woman is a major Republican…a favorite Bush appointee now in the Labor Department…and she is just dripping with hatred toward men she knows nothing about but who she feels might want a return to 1950s personal relationships.
She is no real Republican. She is a Trojan Horse. But nobody is calling her on this.
There is no punishment for outrageous hatred of American men coming from a Bush administration official speaking on PBS.
If she had made such hate-filled and presumptious remarks about any other minority besides white upper middle class international executives…she would have been fired the next day.
Sure, she says in Heritage Foundation speeches that women not get paid pregnancy leave, giving the impression that she would be hated by the NOW…but that doesn’t mean she is not a feminist pretending to be anti-feminist, which is the main strategy of the feminists that got them control of the Republican Party.
These women all went to the same schools and there they decided quietly to pretend to oppose each other in Washington. Karen would say to Janet “I will be the anti-feminist Republican and you be the leader of NOW and we will pretend to hate each other and the opposite political parties will each cleave to one of us as their spokesman…and we will be able to frame all the issues this way.”
I believe the ACFC can gain MORE power by joining with other MRAs to punish individuals who work against men and make it too dangerous for anyone to go too far against us.
Meanwhile, if the ACFC has $160,000 in the bank, then PLEASE DONATE $15,000 to the planned challenge of the IMBRA law that forces background checks on divorced dads who might want to find another wife or girlfriend online.
It wouldn’t have to be accompanied by a press release.
But a win against IMBRA could establish the following, which would directly help ACFC:
1) We could get an SC ruling that Domestic Violence is NOT a federal issue for Congress to deal with.
2) We could stop federal funding under VAWA for “women’s” organizations.
2) We could get the SC to agree that there is too much misandry in the US.
Conservative judges have been watching Marc Rudov on Fox News and CNN.
The time might be right to forge some iron.
I am really tired now because I am in the middle of three long weeks of trade show days in Europe…but I can get back to you on the benefits of getting some major challenges funded for action this fall.
Let’s not keep the $160,000 in the bank earning 4% interest, and let’s be sure that nobody is deliberately husbanding ACFC funds in order to guarantee themselves a personal income.
In 1999 I had shares in a startup company that wanted to produce landmine detection equipment. The salespeople approached the Lady Diana Landmine Foundation. But they quickly learned that the people who worked for the fund were not interested in finding ways to eliminate landmines from the world.
They wanted to make sure the fund money would be around to pay their salaries for the next 20 years.
Having noted that I have a problem with people NOT spending money, I would actually like it if the ACFC spent their money doing things like the following:
1) Trips to Dubai and Riyadh to meet Arab billionaires who hate feminists.
2) Trips to expensive Swiss resorts to meet rich men who could fund the movement.
Effective organizations often have expense reports that include Monte Carlo yacht exscursions or at least overnights in that town and others associated with the high life.
Dr. Baskerville and others need to hang out more with big money individuals. Does he own a tux? Expense it.
Just don’t bother with flying first class unless you expect a specific individual to be there to talk with you.
Jim Peterson
Long posts disappear completely. Mike Lasalle: This is a major bug. Someone rights a long, well-thought-out post and loses it completely when he submits it. He would not have known to copy and paste it somewhere else first.
I just wrote a very long post on how Amfortas said the most relevant of all things for this thread: WE MUST MAKE INDIVIDUALS PAY FOR THEIR MISANDRY.
I nominate Bush favorite Karen Czarnecki for her performance here:
Meanwhile, Dr. Baskerville should buy a tuxedo and spend some of that $150,000 going to places like Dubai and Riyadh and Gstaad speaking with Arab and Russian billionaires who really dislike feminists.
http://shellybarreras.com PhantomBabyStepMomma
It has been very informative reading, I must say. I, personally rely upon my Lord within my heart to point me in the direction of those who are honest, trustworthy and really committed to righting the wrongs of Family Court, Inc. He has not failed me yet, nor will He. Considering that I am just a second wife that fought for her husband, my two cents worth is just that, worth two cents. We just won a judgment against a DNA lab for submitting two false paternity tests declaring my husband a father and enabling the five year long nightmare of support, tax refund interceptions, threats, defamation, status of “Deadbeat Dad” and so on, as each of you is familiar with. Dr. Baskerville, you have my support and a place in my heart.
Shelly Barreras
shellybarreras.com
Step-mom to Stephanie Trevino, a fictitious child mothered by Viola Trevino, et al
amfortas
Welcome to the debate, Shelly, and congratulations for your win against the forces of darkness. May the woman who is at the root of your issue get her just rewards – although I very much doubt she will.
Please take this as you will but I hope you do not consider me presumptious or grubby – the third party company that did the DNA tests has had to pay out a great deal. You ‘followed the money’. Perhaps after you have considered what amount is appropriate to assuage your distress and out-of-pockets, (no doubt considerable on both scores) you might consider putting some of the windfall to good use by funding some groups and efforts to bring sanity back into our society.
Should you find it in your heart and society’s best interest to do so, you will reap what you deserve too. Our profound thanks and respect.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
I want to mention one area of progress that has received almost no acknowledgement at all (with the exception of some published articles and citations). I hope you won’t ignore this just because I’m talking about the results of my own work. I don’t know how many of you know that I’m an actual professional analyst at my core, with an advanced degree and a research background in applied mathematical modeling. (I’m currently working in robotics research; previously in AI / modeling research in agriculture, among other things.) You better know me as a guy who’s written articles that are mostly comprehensible to the general public.
I wouldn’t say this as a professional unless I really meant it: A technical solution to the child support guideline problem has been found. It took years to discover. I started out the way many of you will react to what I just said; with the belief that it is not possible to find a technical solution. Child support amounts are the result of policy. It was only after a couple of years trying to find the best formula that the possibility of finding a solution – the one and only right answer – started to emerge. And I’ll say that isn’t 100% true – still room for variation here and there; and the problem of uncertainty about actual future spending never disappeared – it’s a theoretical solution.
Finding a technical / theoretical solution doesn’t make the political problems disappear. But there are a couple of reasons a political action group should be very interested. This is a dramatic change from where things were technically when federal reforms were passed; and when courts reviewed new child support laws, allowing them partly because of their firm belief that child support could only be determined wholey by policy choice. There is new evidence. Their assumptions (the one’s pushed by the collection industry to get new guidelines accepted) were wrong. This is a reason for change.
Secondly, a solution means knowing where child support amounts should be. The process of determining child support should not be one of trying to haggle with state legislators who in turn look at who’s providing the highest level of campaign contributions. You all know that. But a technical “solution” provides the same conclusion (about doing away with arbitrary political determinations) as you do; like a second opinion that agrees with you.
That is great, but that would not solve the main problem of Misandry in the US.
It seems the father’s rights movement wants to be a separate movement when what the ACFC could be doing is giving $15K to Online Dating Rights to fund the necessary IMBRA lawsuit which, among other things, could get us an Supreme Court ruling 5-4 that Domestic Violence is not something the US Congress has any power over.
Amfortas really hit the nail on the head: We have to make people accountable for opposing males by taking them out of government and the media via ridicule or by loudly insisting that they go.
Here are two European women commenting on the US Congress:
I completely disagree with the idea of just negotiating a compromise on a few separate issues and leaving the likes of Karen Czarnecki as power brokers within the Republican Party.
Think of what we just did to the prosecutor Nifong of the Duke Rape case:
1) He lost his job in government
2) He lost his license to practice law
3) The HELL we are going to let him avoid jail time for what he did
Why compromise with the anti-male scum? Get them out of government NOW.
Read what Amfortas said above, again and again. These people have to pay for what they have been doing to us.
Roger Gay says (#127): The summary is that times have changed. The overwhelming propaganda campaign against fathers has subsided. You’re in the public discussion. Now that people are listening, you need to tell them what you came to say.”
Agreed, we have to tell them what we want to say. But that is insufficient. There is more that I, personally, want. (I speak only for me).
I want retribution. Retributive Justice is needed for all the scum who have visited such pain on men – not just fathers (but they are a good enough sub-set to start). I want to see the Court Mafia writhe in pain. Anyone who ‘just obeyed orders’ and drew a public salary while crucifying men, should be crucified in turn.
I want restitution. There are thousands upon thousands of good, decent men out here who have been dispossessed of everything, including their own flesh and blood. By Government decree. By Court mandate. By Police procedure. Men who have done no more wrong than try to provide for their families with honesrty and fidelity. Someone has to put that right. Life cannot be given back but the spoils hoarded by the fat-cat Judges and Lawyers needs to be stripped from their personal treasuries and distributed as compensation. Not one of them should be allowed to retain the profits of their crimes.
Talk? Yes. Have an organisation or two devoted to that, with people far more erudite and calm communicators than me. They will need funding for phones and computors and stuff.
Get apologies? Yes. Have an organisation or two to name miscreants and demand apologies from them. Public apologies. And confession. They may need funding for rope.
Get bad law overturned? Yes. Have an organisation or two that can draft law and manage the lawmakers. Good negotiators with clear limits are needed. Clever chaps. Diplomatic ones with funding for the clubs behind their backs.
Throw the bums on the street? Yes. Hand me my gun and I will join the several organisations needed for that.
Then we can turn attention to the Professions.
And the Academic cess pits.
There’s plenty of scope for a lot of different organised formations.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
I’m in favor of reparations for fathers. I’ve always been in favor of throwing the people responsÃÂble for these laws in jail, and have said so several times in my articles. But all that isn’t going to happen just from writing a letter and asking for it. What’s the plan?
http://mensnewsdaily.com/author/mike-lasalle Mike LaSalle
FYI – apparently the spam filter has been capturing legitimate comments and trashing them ….
Apologies to anyone who’s comments were unjustly spammed. I have restored all legitimate comments made over the past two weeks.
I have also re-enabled the “most recent comment” section on the home page of MND.
Mike
amfortas
I’d like to advance a little of what Jim Peterson and Roger Gay have said. Both appreciate the need to open the scope to include ALL misandric activities and the people involved. Both recognise that organisation does not have to be large or so tightly controlled as to choke.
Roger asks ‘What’s your plan’? So you want nitty gritty? This isn’t quite the place to put a full blown plan but some hints and examples can set people thinking.
Jim outlines several aspects of a good plan, including the all important access to financial resources. Find some rich guys. This is essential for large organisations which seek longevity and high-profile effect. But small groups, locally based, will carry the most effect, in my opinion. Locally is where people live. They can do things on shoe strings.
I recall Angry Harry outlining a splendid scheme of raising money by suing the underpants of any business that discriminates against men, using small claims procedures. It’s just underpants. You don’t have to go for the suit, shirt and tie. Just wandering onto their premises and ‘slipping’ on a bit of their product is enough to get a couple of grand compensation. Money in the pot. Defending small claims is a greater loss for a company. The lawyers take more than the compensation would be.
This is war. Don’t forget that.
And it calls for messiness, occasionally. It can tax the really moral person. But grasp the nettle and do what has to be done. Try to have fun.
Getting sinners to pay toward the punishment of other sinners sounds pretty good to me. The idea is to destroy bad people, not tell them off and let them go.
So, to the main course, targeting people.
Golly, just look around. We live in a target-rich environment. If you are a lone rifleman facing a battalion marching toward you, you are going to have one hell of a great day.
The ‘organisation’ can be very small, two or three guys, and a plan carried out at local level. That way it can be taken up on an opportunity basis by almost any MRA and tailored to suit circumstance. Tactics can be very simple. (You don’t expect field Lieutenants and Captains to be McGyver)
The ‘plan’ would have several important aspects.
The target would be prominent. Known. ‘Respected’. Have power, whatever that is in their particular field. Particularly in their local area. We do not have to go right to the top. We don’t all have to go after Hillary. Small folk squeal loudly enough for the big people’s ears to bleed. Judges, lawyers, academics, ‘shelter operators, local politicians. The focal tactical mode is psychological warfare and grey propaganda.
(Note: Local is good. But the ‘Welsh’ tactic is fine too. A Welshman never drinks in his own village pub on a Sunday. People will see him and ‘talk’. He should be in Chapel. So he drinks in the next Village’s pub)
The target would be told, in very clear terms , that they are a target.
We must signal that someone is coming after them. Put the fear of God into them. Others must know too. The more the better and at local level it is the most devastating to personal relationships. We want their own little, piddly world to watch them taken down as well as the wider nation.
Developing personal, clinical stress / strain is an aim. Make their stomach ulcers and heart attacks your measure.
Turning people against them is an aim.
Exposing them as dangerous to know is an aim.
Public exposure and turning public spotlights on them, particularly terrier newspaper reporters and local TV stations, is an aim. (in military jargon, it is using ‘friendly forces’, even if they are ‘engineered’ into the effort). Feed the chooks.
They, and others around them, must be told why they are a target, in simple point form with examples of what they have said, what they have done, what damage affect they have had on lives.
If someone’s family has been broken up, a man dispossessed, a man committed suicide, a false allegation made and ignored – or worse accepted against clear evidence, a systematic mendacity spread, a ‘research’ paper published containing outright lies and distortions, an arrest made with no evidence and with bias (there must be a thousand Adolph Eichmann cops out there who have arrested an innocent man with malice and bias driving the action), take your pick, choose your particular hobby-horse. Use that as your rationale.
A modicum of research and prep is needed to gather examples of their misandry and damage.
We are not into arguing the merits, simply outlining the ‘charges’.
A thousand copies of a simple one side of A4, spread around notice boards in the local community, libraries, post boxes, lamp-posts etc. Copies left on bus seats and train seats and in restaurants. Sliding small notices into library books is like leaving time-bombs around. No one will notice you slip them in to half a dozen books as you browse. University students Union or recreational facility boards are wonderful places. An evening or two’s work. $100 outlay.
Use the person’s name, repeatedly. At least five times on any page. Bold, large type.
We must tell them, and those who watch, very clearly and simply what they are, be it liars, family break-up artistes, child abusers (good for pretty well any anti-family court Judge), thieves (good for most lawyers), embezzlers of public monies (shelter operators), man-arresting cops, whatever. Use ‘emotive’ accusatory words.
Techniques can include letter drops to neighbours telling of the person and their ‘crimes’.
Posting their photos on their children’s school gates asking “Have you seen this person loiteringâ€Â. “Danger. Protect you kids from this abuserâ€Â.
Signs in Utes (the Blomhorst tactic) simply saying ‘So and so is Dangerous to men and families.†“Hey Judge X, How’s your pay? How many lies did you believe today?â€Â
Questions, instead of statements, are wonderful for sowing seeds of suspicion. Small posters around the town with a photo and a question – “Why is this man-hater allowed to carry a gun?†“How many families did this person destroy last year?â€Â. “Is your son safe near this teacher?†“Why vote for this someone, who hates you?â€Â. “Did this person cause two suicides this year?†“Are you sure your children are safe near this person?â€Â.
Be creative. Be nasty.
Put their address on everything. Street name and number. Telphone too. and email.
Taking videos with cell phones, of targets going about their lawful occasions and posting them on the net with questions regarding their probity, is another tactic for large scale drawing attention. “This Judge in (wherever ) is going to work. He will destroy a family today and disregard any Truth that dares to breech his Courtâ€Â. “This lawyer in (wherever) steals $700,000 a year from fathers and their families that he breaks up. What a success!†“This woman will lie to a mother in the next ten minutes and destroy a father’s reputation. She will break up a family. Your Council gave her a ‘grant. You money at work’.â€Â
Send the videos to his/her workmates or even better to the people in the offices all down the street.
The types of tactical actions can be legion.
Get nasty.
One week to hit a neighbourhood and cause a hue and cry. Then back off. Head down for a while, say a month. Then round two. Repeat, develop, press forward.
Let everyone know what effect is had. Write about it. Post it one the web. Send links to all your local newspapers and TV /Radio stations. Mention them if they have writen an article about the furore you cause.
Five people a year isn’t too much. 5 a year in every State though….. that’s 250 bodies in the USA, 40 in Oz, around 100 in the UK, etc etc.
400 in a year would send a message. Treat men disgracefully and this is what happens to you.
A ‘Standard’, with battle honours, to rally around.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
amfortas; Been there. Done that.
There was no need to be particularly strategic or cunning. I started writing while the propaganda was extreme and intense. No reason to ask questions to sow a see of suspicion. They were delivering bold-faced lies by the train-load and stomping out common sense along the way, and are still stealing from the national treasury and from parents and children; the latter made possible only by a bold-faced refusal to operate within constitutional limits. Telling the truth was and still is a powerful formula.
It mattered. There are still people who need to be exposed – and new efforts to revitalize the propaganda campaign should not go unanswered.
But – I’m not the only person who wants to see concrete changes as well, not just a strategy for carrying on the battle and beating back the scoundrels in public debate. What do you want to tell fathers who live in poverty because their income is being stolen from them, fathers who spend time in jail because of administrative mistakes and lies, men paying child support when they’re not the fathers of the children they’re supporting – etc. about the goals of the organization that are designed to concretely fix these problems?
Jim Peterson
I was thinking more like going after the jobs of feminists in the Bush administration like Karen Czarnecki…and exposing the Independent Women’s Forum as a feminist institution, not a Republican anti-feminist group of women.
Jim Peterson
I am not sure what to do about exposing the billionaire Dick Scaife for what he is…a feminist gofer boy with an obsession with sex (stopping other men from having it).
Jim Peterson
Then there is Erica Little of the Heritage Foundation. She is a dyed in the wool feminist and does not belong in a conservative think tank.
We have to take such institutions back and it will mean sending some people home who specifically infiltrated them to fight men.
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
Heritage should definitely know better. They’re playing politics at our expense. They should be ashamed. Erica Little did time at the Family Research Council back when they were pushing the far left feminist – homosexual agenda. She spent a semester with the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution … (there’s a place to learn the wrong lessons) ….
http://www.geocities.com/rogerfgay/ Roger F. Gay
Heritage should definitely know better (I’m sure they do).
Jim Peterson
I do not understand the comment “I’m sure they do”.
According to the new Washington Post article that just came out yesterday, the “social conservatives” made a deal with the feminists in 1999 to completely agree with each other on everything except abortion and lesbianism:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
–Dwight David Eisenhower, “The Chance for Peace,” speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Apr. 16, 1953.
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