MSM’s Conspiracy of Silence on DV
April 30, 2009
This letter to the editor gives readers a window on how domestic violence in this country is reported (Chicago Tribune, 4/23/09). It's from Jeffery Leving, Chairman of the Illinois Council on Responsible Fatherhood. Apparently he was interviewed by a reporter for the Tribune for an article on supervised child visitation centers. While expressing his pleasure at having been interviewed, Leving goes on to say that the article "deleted the two fundamental points that I made."
The first of those was that "domestic violence is not gender specific."
To be clear, the reporter, Megan Twohey, interviewed Leving and he told her an important fact about DV. That important fact did not make it into the article.
So, when reading DV articles in the future, be aware that the reporter and editor may actually know the facts. Indeed, interviewees may have told them the facts about DV in so many words. But the almost total boycott by the MSM of any mention of domestic violence done by women to men remains in place. In other words, some journalists may be ignorant of basic facts, but ignorance doesn't explain the absence of those facts from press accounts of DV.
Even when they know the truth, they refuse to admit it. That's not ignorance, that's a conspiracy of silence.
Don't believe me? Here's the article Leving was complaining about (Chicago Tribune, 4/20/09). It includes two incidents of severe domestic violence including parental kidnapping. Both perpetrators were men.
If you've never read Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann's Manufacturing Consent, now might be a good time to do so. The MSM's almost total disregard of the basic facts of DV are a classic example of what the book is about.
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MSM’s Conspiracy of Silence on DV
April 30, 2009
This letter to the editor gives readers a window on how domestic violence in this country is reported (Chicago Tribune, 4/23/09). It's from Jeffery Leving, Chairman of the Illinois Council on Responsible Fatherhood. Apparently he was interviewed by a reporter for the Tribune for an article on supervised child visitation centers. While expressing his pleasure at having been interviewed, Leving goes on to say that the article "deleted the two fundamental points that I made."
The first of those was that "domestic violence is not gender specific."
To be clear, the reporter, Megan Twohey, interviewed Leving and he told her an important fact about DV. That important fact did not make it into the article.
So, when reading DV articles in the future, be aware that the reporter and editor may actually know the facts. Indeed, interviewees may have told them the facts about DV in so many words. But the almost total boycott by the MSM of any mention of domestic violence done by women to men remains in place. In other words, some journalists may be ignorant of basic facts, but ignorance doesn't explain the absence of those facts from press accounts of DV.
Even when they know the truth, they refuse to admit it. That's not ignorance, that's a conspiracy of silence.
Don't believe me? Here's the article Leving was complaining about (Chicago Tribune, 4/20/09). It includes two incidents of severe domestic violence including parental kidnapping. Both perpetrators were men.
If you've never read Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann's Manufacturing Consent, now might be a good time to do so. The MSM's almost total disregard of the basic facts of DV are a classic example of what the book is about.
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Decriminalize Pot – Free Men from Prison
April 30, 2009
For decades, syndicated columnist Neil Peirce has been one of the best informed writers on urban issues in the United States. This piece is a good example (Seattle Times, 4/24/09).
It's about decriminalization of marijuana. Thirteen states now have some form of law permitting the possession and use of marijuana for any of an array of medical reasons. But during the Bush administration, the federal government took the legally questionable position that federal law governed the use of pot.Â
In most cases, criminal law is up to the states and federal law can only intervene via some federal power like that over interstate commerce. So if pot were grown in, for example, California, many believed federal law could not be used to criminalize its cultivation, possession or use within that state. In short, it's a basic states' rights issue in which, oddly enough, the Republican Bush came down on the side of federal power.
Now, perhaps equally strangely, the Democratic Attorney General Eric Holder has come down on the side of states' rights. That is, the feds will no longer assert power over California's decision to loosen up on pot for medical use. Marijuana dispensaries, licensed by the state, will no longer be raided by DEA agents under Holder's decision.
Peirce goes on to cite the study by the Cato Institute and authored by the always sensible and occasionally brilliant Glenn Greenwald.  Eight years ago, Portugal, facing rampant drug abuse, particularly among the young, decided to decriminalize the possession of marijuana. Trafficking was still criminal, but possession was made subject to no more serious a penalty than a police citation and "dissuasion," which as a practical matter means treatment. Critics warned of an epidemic of pot use, but, in the event, according to the Cato study, pot use has declined. Resources, formerly used to imprison pot users are now available to be redirected at treatment programs.
All of which is to say that decriminalization of marijuana possession is a good idea, not least for a reason that Peirce doesn't mention - fewer people, mostly men, in prison. Nationwide decriminalization could lead to something like 400,000 fewer men behind bars.
We're not there yet, but Eric Holder's change of policy is a start.
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Author Wendy McElroy, Columnist Amy Alkon Back Campaign Against Lifetime’s ‘Deadbeat Dads’
April 30, 2009
"But worst of all, the producers of this show, which is supposed to center the welfare of children, think nothing about turning kids into collateral damage."--syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon
Author and former Fox News columnist Wendy McElroy and syndicated advice columnist Amy Alkon are backing our Campaign Against Lifetime TV's New Reality Show Deadbeat Dads. In The Truth About "Deadbeat Dads", Alkon writes:
[T]here are parents out there, especially in the current economy, who've lost their job, are unable to find another, and are simply unable to pay or unable to pay the pre-recession amount they were assigned. There are also parents out there who have found new jobs, but jobs that pay much less -- but are still expected to pay huge sums in child support, based on their previous income; sometimes because they didn't know to go get their child support order changed in court. These parents typically end up going further and further into debt, and sometimes being thrown in jail -- and in too many cases, not because they're bad people, but simply because they've fallen on hard times. These parents are sometimes women, but are usually men...
a show Lifetime is planning to air, called "Deadbeat Dads," continuing the myth that any guy who isn't paying his child support is a horrible person who can pay, but just doesn't. The show is a reality dealie, where a bounty hunter will go after these guys, but I guess, unless the title is a mistake, deadbeat moms just aren't part of the deal.
I'm guessing they'll pick the really big scumbags for the greatest dramatic effect, not the guys who've lost their jobs. But worst of all, the producers of this show, which is supposed to center the welfare of children, think nothing about turning kids into collateral damage. As Kevin O'Shea writes for the Detroit News:
The fact that the show is now on Lifetime, a network well known for its programming targeted at women, has raised some hackles. So has the potential effect of the show on the children involved. One critic says "The worst part about 'Deadbeat Dads' is the way it publicly humiliates children of divorce by depicting their fathers as not loving or caring for them. These children did not volunteer to be humiliated on national television."
The show was originally slated to appear on Fox, but men's groups, led by Fathers & Families, launched protests, and Fox dropped it. To voice your complaint to Lifetime in hopes they'll drop it as well, and for more information, click here.
Read Alkon's full piece here or comment here.
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Another Newborn Killed by his Mother and Another Judicial Tap on the Wrist
April 30, 2009
When this case appeared on my screen, my first thought was "Oh, I've already done a piece on that," and started to delete it. After all, it looks a lot like the Alicia Zebrun case I wrote about in "Sentencing Discount for Woman Who Left Newborn to Die." The two women even look somewhat alike.
Alas, this is yet another story of a woman who intentionally killed her newborn child. In this case, Angela Kuehl of Ottawa smothered the baby boy she later named Noah in plastic, put him in a trash bag and dumped him in the garbage. The article makes a half-hearted effort to fob off the wrongdoing on Kuehl's common-law husband who didn't want children. Apparently neither did she.
And, like the Zebrun case, it looks like Kuehl will get off with scarcely any punishment. The prosecutor and defense attorney seem to have arrived at a plea deal - "a one-year conditional sentence to be served in the community, along with 200 hours of community service, followed by two years probation." The judge is going to take some time to think it over.
Apparently, court-appointed psychologists have concluded that Kuehl suffered from "a disturbance of mind upon giving birth."Â That finding is necessary to allow her to plead to infanticide rather than second-degree murder.
I have a few questions. Kuehl, like every other woman in Canada, has access to a wide variety of contraceptive options. Like every other woman, she has access to the morning after pill. Like every other woman, she has the right to terminate the pregnancy via abortion.  Although Canada apparently has no Safe Haven law, like every other woman, Kuehl had the right to place the child for a adoption.  A healthy newborn like hers would likely have gotten a home in short order. Kuehl availed herself of none of those many possibilities. Instead, she killed a living, and yes, breathing child.
My question is this: does any of that matter to Canadian authorities? All of those alternatives are there so that, among other things, the minutes-old Noahs of the world can live and not be killed.Â
I'll accept that Kuehl suffered "a disturbance of mind upon giving birth." I don't have any evidence to the contrary. But was she suffering a "disturbance of mind" during all the nine months before Noah was born? If she really was so mentally unbalanced that she couldn't understand that she was pregnant or that she had resources to end the pregnancy before the fetus had become viable, I have no problem with a light sentence.Â
But there's no suggestion in the article of any of that. And if she did have the faculties to understand the concepts of birth control, pregnancy and abortion, then I must say, I don't understand how she, and more importantly the Canadian judicial system, can be so callous about an infant's life.
Canadian law does not protect this behavior. Unlike in the United States, Canada recognizes no restrictions on abortion, but once a child is born, it has the rights of other human beings.
And Noah had already been born. He was long past the stage at which we accept a mother's taking of his life, and yet the judicial system treats him as if he were not.  We search the statements of the judge and prosecutor for any hint of outrage, in vain. They seem to believe that the only one injured here is Kuehl.
Did anyone even once inquire about what steps Kuehl had taken to prevent herself from becoming pregnant or to end it legally once she had? If so the article doesn't report the fact. Do they - the prosecutor, the judge and the press - just not care?
I doubt they're that heartless and unfeeling. What I do believe is that we still place essentially all decisions about children in the hands of their mothers. Even when they commit the most heinous acts against a child, society's response is to make excuses, to absolve her of responsibility.Â
As long as we do that, women will never attain equality with men. When we hold them to equal standards of morality concerning their treatment of children, they will.
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More Darkness – and a Sliver of Light – on DV
April 29, 2009
I guess this is progress (Chicago Tribune, 4/20/09).
The Nation's Katha Pollitt takes on domestic violence and the question of why women don't leave their abusers. Unfortunately, about half of her bout with that question is just feminist boilerplate, but the second half actually looks like a serious effort to come to grips with the issue she raises. Who'd have guessed?
She starts out badly enough, first with (of course) Chris Brown and then with this semi-literate offering: "Leaving aside those who claim women abusing men is just as big a problem, sure men will hit, so it's up to women to run away."
I can only guess at what that is supposed to mean, but women do engage in DV as often as men. Literally hundreds of studies over about 35 years show it conclusively. Whether that means it's "just as big a problem" or not I suppose depends on your point of view. I have a feeling I know Pollitt's, but to me whether female on male DV is "just as big a problem" as the other way around is far from the point.Â
The important point is that DV gets addressed and its incidence reduced. To do that we have to, among other things, admit the facts. Once we do that, we can dispense with the Duluth Model and move on to psychological therapies that, being based on the realities of DV and not political ideology, can work.
But meanwhile, Pollitt wants readers to think that, men's rights advocates believe male DV to be OK and "it's up to the woman to run away." I'd like to know where she gets that idea. Not from GlennSacks.com, I can tell you.Â
No, what MRAs are pointing out is far simpler - take care of yourself. Bad things, including DV, can happen to anyone. If it's happening to you, do what you can to prevent it. That's not to excuse the person hitting you, it's just a reasonable thing to do. If you're standing in the roadway with a car bearing down on you, get out of the way; don't let it hit you and then complain that your self-esteem was too low to allow you to move.
Of course there are times a woman can't reasonably be asked to leave an abusive relationship, but they're extremely rare. If a woman has no job and no prospects and there's not a DV shelter and she has no relatives or friends, I can see the point, but not otherwise. Pollitt's answer, that must be Rule 1 of the feminist DV handbook, is that, if she tries to leave, he'll kill her. Pardon me, but that phenomenon is vanishingly rare. Does it happen? Probably so. Lightening strikes kill people too, but we still go out in the rain when we need to.
But Pollitt finally gets around to some serious thinking on the subject of DV. Based on the experiences reported by Leslie Morgan Steiner, Pollitt finally comes to the understanding that women who stay with abusive mates sometimes do so out of a misguided sense of empathy for the guy. They think of themselves as helpers, caregivers and their partners as in need of help. In other words, Pollitt actually sees at least part of DV for what it really is - a psychological phenomenon.
Now of course Pollitt only takes this concept so far. She doesn't, for example conceive of empathy as it actually is - based on the certain knowledge that "there but for the grace of God go I." She doesn't begin to get the notion that for every abused there's a person who fully understands the abuser, and may be capable of it herself. No, to do that would be to acknowledge the facts of DV - that, yes, men and women do it equally.
Pollitt asks, but doesn't answer or apparently even pause to think about "why do men abuse women?" If she'd pick up the telephone and ask a qualified professional, or read a book on the subject, she'd know the answer. Men who abuse as adults were abused as children. The same is true for women who abuse. And of course those children were most likely abused by women, usually their mothers. There's no way Pollitt is going there.
And Pollitt certainly doesn't get the concept that, if a person stays with a habitual abuser, he or she perceives that they get something out of the arrangement. To her, that simple, basic psychological notion constitutes "blaming the victim." It doesn't. It seeks to understand the victim and why he or she allows their victimhood to continue.
I hate to tell Pollitt and her sisters, but until you do that, you'll never understand, let alone reduce, incidents of domestic violence. I've come to suspect that, for many DV activists, that's not the goal.
But on the bright side, never once did Pollitt fall back on the tired and utterly false trope that DV is all about men controlling women. Thank heaven for small favors.
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Beautiful ‘Stand by Me’ Video
April 29, 2009
This is a little different from the usual GlennSacks.com fare, but, as the text says, if it doesn't bring a smile to your face and a tear to your eye, well...
You may have seen this video. If you have, it's worth seeing again. If you haven't, don't delay. It's a mix of musicians from many countries doing their take on 'Stand by Me.'Â
If you need a connection to men's and fathers' issues, you might see it as a powerful answer to a certain statement about fish and bicycles.Â
And check the dad with his little girl at the first and last.
Take five minutes to watch and listen.
Thanks to Mark for the heads-up.
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Examiner Columnist Backs Lifetime, Calls Our Campaign Against ‘Deadbeat Dads’ Show ‘Backlash’
April 29, 2009
"I once wrote that slave labor [for deadbeats] is probably the only solution, but national public humiliation is also good."
Examiner columnist April McCaffery backs up Lifetime against our Campaign Against Lifetime TV's New Reality Show Deadbeat Dads in her new column Standing up to deadbeat dads is standing up for your children (4/28/09). McCaffery's ex-husband is a drug addict and a "deadbeat [who] can't seem to hold down a job or residence long enough to be caught by the system."
McCaffery writes:
I read our National Single Parenting Examiner's article on the new Lifetime show about deadbeat dads with great interest.
My own daughters' father is a deadbeat. He can't seem to hold down a job or residence long enough to be caught by the system, and he's a drug addict.
I once wrote that slave labor is probably the only solution, but national public humiliation is also good.
I'm not surprised by the backlash of the show, citing concerns for the children. I'm more concerned, however, of what those children actually lose by not getting the financial support they are owed.
The purpose of the financial support isn't mere folly. It's not about making a parent take responsibility for their actions. It's not about divorced parents trying to work together.
It's the cold, hard fact that raising children costs cold, hard cash. Without the money, children suffer.
Without the money, many children (and their parent that actually raises them) go without health insurance and regular check-ups. Without the money, children lose out on opportunities for a better education if they can't afford to live in the right neighborhood or pay for private school or pay for tutoring. Without the money, some single parents have to work more than one job and spend less time with their children...
But even beyond the actual, tangible real benefits that children gain when they receive the child support they are owed, there is also something to be said for children seeing their parent (and in this TV show, a man) standing up and fighting for them. My children know that what makes me angry about not getting the child support is what I cannot give them by not having it. They know that I think they are worth the best of anything and everything.
I don't hold out hope that I'll ever receive the child support that my children are due...Still, my children will know that I tried. My children will know that I fought for what was rightfully theirs. And I, for one, will be tuning into this new show, and hoping to see at least some children get what they deserve.
Read the full column here.
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Examiner Columnist Backs Lifetime, Calls Our Campaign Against ‘Deadbeat Dads’ Show ‘Backlash’
April 29, 2009
"I once wrote that slave labor [for deadbeats] is probably the only solution, but national public humiliation is also good."
Examiner columnist April McCaffery backs up Lifetime against our Campaign Against Lifetime TV's New Reality Show Deadbeat Dads in her new column Standing up to deadbeat dads is standing up for your children (4/28/09). McCaffery's ex-husband is a drug addict and a "deadbeat [who] can't seem to hold down a job or residence long enough to be caught by the system."
McCaffery writes:
I read our National Single Parenting Examiner's article on the new Lifetime show about deadbeat dads with great interest.
My own daughters' father is a deadbeat. He can't seem to hold down a job or residence long enough to be caught by the system, and he's a drug addict.
I once wrote that slave labor is probably the only solution, but national public humiliation is also good.
I'm not surprised by the backlash of the show, citing concerns for the children. I'm more concerned, however, of what those children actually lose by not getting the financial support they are owed.
The purpose of the financial support isn't mere folly. It's not about making a parent take responsibility for their actions. It's not about divorced parents trying to work together.
It's the cold, hard fact that raising children costs cold, hard cash. Without the money, children suffer.
Without the money, many children (and their parent that actually raises them) go without health insurance and regular check-ups. Without the money, children lose out on opportunities for a better education if they can't afford to live in the right neighborhood or pay for private school or pay for tutoring. Without the money, some single parents have to work more than one job and spend less time with their children...
But even beyond the actual, tangible real benefits that children gain when they receive the child support they are owed, there is also something to be said for children seeing their parent (and in this TV show, a man) standing up and fighting for them. My children know that what makes me angry about not getting the child support is what I cannot give them by not having it. They know that I think they are worth the best of anything and everything.
I don't hold out hope that I'll ever receive the child support that my children are due...Still, my children will know that I tried. My children will know that I fought for what was rightfully theirs. And I, for one, will be tuning into this new show, and hoping to see at least some children get what they deserve.
Read the full column here.
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Examiner Columnist Backs Lifetime, Calls Our Campaign Against ‘Deadbeat Dads’ Show ‘Backlash’
April 29, 2009
"I once wrote that slave labor [for deadbeats] is probably the only solution, but national public humiliation is also good."
Examiner columnist April McCaffery backs up Lifetime against our Campaign Against Lifetime TV's New Reality Show Deadbeat Dads in her new column Standing up to deadbeat dads is standing up for your children (4/28/09). McCaffery's ex-husband is a drug addict and a "deadbeat [who] can't seem to hold down a job or residence long enough to be caught by the system."
McCaffery writes:
I read our National Single Parenting Examiner's article on the new Lifetime show about deadbeat dads with great interest.
My own daughters' father is a deadbeat. He can't seem to hold down a job or residence long enough to be caught by the system, and he's a drug addict.
I once wrote that slave labor is probably the only solution, but national public humiliation is also good.
I'm not surprised by the backlash of the show, citing concerns for the children. I'm more concerned, however, of what those children actually lose by not getting the financial support they are owed.
The purpose of the financial support isn't mere folly. It's not about making a parent take responsibility for their actions. It's not about divorced parents trying to work together.
It's the cold, hard fact that raising children costs cold, hard cash. Without the money, children suffer...
But even beyond the actual, tangible real benefits that children gain when they receive the child support they are owed, there is also something to be said for children seeing their parent (and in this TV show, a man) standing up and fighting for them. My children know that what makes me angry about not getting the child support is what I cannot give them by not having it...I, for one, will be tuning into this new show, and hoping to see at least some children get what they deserve.
Read the full column here.
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