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DNR Killers want a hunting season on cats and will use their tax supported lobby group to get it
Question 62 http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/nrboard/congress/sh/cca/index.htm
is a question that will be asked at the (tax payer supported hunters lobby's) annual meeting of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress.
Hunters in Wisconsin want an open, unlimited season to shoot cats who do not wear collars . See the website: Dont Shoot The Cat
Posed to the Wisconsin Conservation Congress at the spring hearings on 4/11/05.
Here it is:
Question 62 - Feral Cats
Studies have been done in Wisconsin concerning effects of free roaming feral domestic cats. These studies showed free roaming feral domestic cats killed millions of small mammals, song and game birds. Estimates range from a minimum of 47 million up to 139 million songbirds are killed each year. Free roaming feral domestic cats are not a native species in Wisconsin. The above mentioned cats do however kill native species therefore reducing native species.
At present free roaming feral domestic cats are not defined as a protected or unprotected species. Thus Wisconsin should move to define free roaming feral domestic cats, as any domestic type cat which is not under the owner's direct control, or whose owner has not placed a collar on such cat showing it to be their property. All such defined free roaming feral domestic cats shall be listed as an unprotected species. In so doing Wisconsin would be defining and listing free roaming feral domestic cats.
Q62. Do you favor the DNR take steps to define free roaming feral domestic cats by the previously mentioned definition and list free roaming domestic feral cats as an unprotected species?
The UW study that is being referred to is the one that Stanley Temple published in Wisconsin Natural Resources in December 1996. It's available here
We question the validity of this study. We challenge the solution Question 62 poses. Don't Shoot the Cat. Join us at the Conservation Congress hearings, 4/11/05.
Call Mad Cat 608.833.5800 - ask for Ted and tell him you want a copy of the radio show on this subject - Adam at one of their other stores can help too.
Questions? info@dontshootthecat.com
This proposal was brought by Mark Smith who likes to trap and kill cats. Smith is a firefighter for the City of LaCrosse "If I am in the woods and see a cat without a collar, then I could shoot it" says Mark Smith.
Professor Temple of the Wildlife Ecology Department at the University of Wisconsin, 608.263.6827, satemple@wisc.edu said that legislation is not needed because the DNR has the authority to declare rural cats an unprotected species.
Both the men who want to target shoot cats, Mark Smith and Professor Temple, are supported by the taxpayers in govt. funded employment. They have a lot of leisure time and great benefits. The Conservation Congress, a hunter's lobby group is staffed by the DNR and therefore funded by the tax payers.
Non hunters are not supported by anyone and have to fund their own efforts to use the resources. Our projects are funded by bake sales. Our money is wasted by these sadistic killers.
In Professor Temple's study - he claims he did not actually kill the cats , at least this is what he states, - he was not funded to kill them - he says he administered a medicine that caused them to throw up their stomach contents . He then radio collared them and released them - then most of them died of natural causes a short time later. I assume he then slit open their stomachs but I did not get a chance to ask him. I don't believe him anyway. He avoided the obvious and drew science around him like a holy cloak.
He did admit that cats were not the primary source of bird or small mammal deaths. He also said he thought that the studies done by the Trap, Neuter and Release people were "interesting" (showing that where feral cats were released back into their colonies after being neutered their feral population declined).
His study is debunked as junk science here.
____________________________________ I will write more when I am not so angry...
Read:Feral Cat News for many links on hunting wisc. cats and good suggestions for cat lovers.
To really understand what is going on with the Cat Tribe people and the Trap,Neuter,Release movement, you can read a wonderful book that you will finish in two or three exciting days.
Shadow Cats: Tales From New York City's Animal Underground by Janet Jensen. Just send ten dollars along with your return address and a note stating whether you want the author to sign the book to the following address:
Shadow Cats 504 Grand St. Suite A-62, New York, NY 10002 - 4182
See also: the Ally Cat Allies, Trap Neuter and Release program at http://www.alleycat.org/
Trap Neuter and Release of feral cats is also endorsed by the Madison Humane Society http://www.humanesociety.dane.wi.us/ and Milwaukee Humane Society http://wihumane.org/endcruelty/wildcats.html
I believe in Wisconsin, the Dane, Rock and Milwaukee County Humane Society offer some economic assistance, especially for people on farms with large cat populations. Probably other counties humane societies also do offer some assistance. State by State Low Cost Neutering
In Dane County, Alliance for Animals is offering Spay/Neuter discount vouchers from participating veterinarians. Call: 608-254-6333.
Also See the Doris Day Animal League for more spay/neuter help.
Also, see Small Animal Advocates of Stoughten and Oregon
Country Animal Haven
Touched By A Paw No Kill Cat Shelter 182 Main Street, Whitewater, WI 53190
262.473.4769
This is a shelter with a fabulous Vintage Clothes Shop (Reflections of the Past) in the front of the shelter. If you buy yourself a velvet cape, embroidered kimono, rayon dress from the 40's, or any of the hundreds of other outfits and accessories, you help the kittens and mama's in their lovely hammocks. Their goal is to teach compassion.
The Shelter is Open Saturdays 12:00 TO 4:00 PM or by appt. Call them!
The clothes store is open all week so don't stay away because of the restricted hours.
They have a newsletter called CAT MEWS - Subscribe to the Cat Mews Newsletter at TBAPCATS@TICON.NET
posted by Greenconsciousness
at 6:14 PM - Link
18 Comments:
How is a cat defined as feral? The DNR website says nothing about without a collar. My outside cats who have a heated house and are fed daily don't wear collars, neither do farm cats.
Also I'm wondering where cat hunting would be allowed. I assume not in city limits.
My cats were shot in the city for target practice by my next store neighbor. See "Higher Consciousness" on my web site (link is on the green column). But that is a long story. I do not want to tell it now because you must really go to www.catfencein.com
and get your area fenced with cat fence in system at the top.
I do have a long entry on how I secured my backyard so the cats could be outside but not get out of the yard. It is at the very top of this blog and it is called "to dance beneath the diamond sky". Click on it and read the whole long thing.
I am leaving a lot of things out of this reply because I feel it is so urgent to reply to you quickly.
These people are sadists. They do not give a damn if the cat has a collar or not. They just want to shoot and they will remove any collars on any cat they kill. The classification is to cover their butts because of people like me who are fighting back. (although we have not won any of our battles so far, when we do get prosecutions everything is bargained down to disorderly conduct offenses - restitution is $10 to $50.00 and then we are fined for "letting" our cats out of the yard $500.00 to $1,000.00)
And believe this, even if you do not believe anything else I say: No police dept will even investigate your cats death after the fact, even if you do find the body which you probably will not. If you force an investigation, they will prosecute YOU for letting your cat go outside. Read their language in their proposal and learn. Trap, neuter, Release works to reduce the feral cat population - it is working all over the US and in Wisconsin. Killing has gone on for generations and failed. But the killers don't care. They like hurting things and that is why they want the law changed. No rational arguments will change their minds. No statistics will ever change their minds. They want to shoot and trap small animals and birds and they, humans, are the primary cause of the loss of those populations. Cats, their neighbors cats and ferals, are an easier source of fun for them and they will fight to make cats a prey animal as they did with the mourning dove and ravens and crows.
I am one who learned the hard way
But now I am with you on the path
These are excerpts from a letter I wrote to Feral Cat News:...
I promote the cat fence in system to protect them in your back yard but they have the right to live in nature just as we do. The house is just another cage. I learned this when the man next door, after I refused to have sex with him, started killing my cats for fun. He and his cop friends used the legal system to destroy me. My story is on the Higher Consciousness section of my web pages. I almost ended up in prison. As it was, I lost everything.
The animal rights groups were another obstacle with their know it all attitudes. They consistently blame the victim. I say this as a professional organizer who started the second battered woman's shelter in the US in 1973 and won significant institutional change for battered women, rape victims and children in Wisconsin over a 20 year period of time.
You do not change things for victims by confining victims and this goes for cats too. You must be realistic, there are places cats should not go, they should be confined to your own property, but if the focus is not on primarily confining abusers, they will get you wherever you hide eventually.
The men promoting this open hunting season on cats are said abusers. They need cover because the spotlight is slowly turning in their direction. They have been killing other people's cats for generations and they want it legitimized before the legal system catches up with them. Some live in the universities, some live in the police station and some live next door.
Ginnie, I am so sorry to hear you learned the hard way just how abusive and corrupt many in that area (that you moved from) are. You and I *both* know from experience that some working in conjunction with the court system lied, were oddly considered unquestionable, and judges felt no qualms about giving kids over (for visitation) to their abusers that the same judge/court convicted. I got funny vibes as to how some viewed you in the "related official networks of that area" ... Later, for various reasons I felt the area was not a place for a single woman of growing consciousness, and so I moved in 2000.
As you all too well know (and taught me), people's attitudes, justifications, rationalizations, blaming, denial and more regarding animals *do* show up in their treatment of people, and in your case it showed up with a vengeance, literally, it seems.
Marriah, whose sterilization surgery you voluntarily paid for about nine years ago, is now ten and a well, frisky, very loving and loved cat. I thank you once again. Marriah thanks you.
Now, as for:
"Catch, neuter/spay, and release"
vs.
"Fail birth control, fail logic, don't check, and then shoot!"
The latter seems to be a product of "don't check the facts/solutions/resources (Net, etc.), spout the preferred 'doctored' reality/'answers' and then let the shooting begin."
Our society has far more violence than many others for the very same basic underlying reason that it is far too acceptable and actually socially sanctioned that people don't better think or check the facts before lusting for bloodshed/suffering and doing it in coordination with others in power. Oh, that you know all too well, don’t you, and we see it again with their push to shoot cats.
As to the loaded question as to which is cheaper (the bullets are, presumably) I responded elsewhere with the following three paragraphs:
History provides several examples that more than hints at the potential scope of problems (pleural!) if cats are killed off in larger numbers.
When asking which is cheaper and less labor intensive overall people need to consider the scope of all "what ifs" and their projected costs, not just the cost of bullets or whatever is involved in killing feral cats off.
Killing the cats is only the first phase because living things are on the food chain so it's only an illusion that "the problem with cats" is separate from the web of life.
The magic bullet solution (such as “kill feral cats”) often fails at great cost in complex systems (web of life), stupidity still kills (people as well as cats), chaos can still rule, and the costs of scrambling to fix things in hindsight are usually much higher than those damn bullets!
You were the only other one, so far, that I saw question the wisdom of “shooting only cats without collars.”
I asked: How well can people see cat collars when shooting from a distance or do they shoot at close range after checking to make sure the cat indeed has a collar on?
Your comment that many would take the collars off the dead cats and then lie about doing that is so on target! The psychology of it rings too true to the underlying behaviors seen in many layers (like an onion) in Wisconsin (and elsewhere, of course).
Adults have to be careful of the examples they set, and I'm glad to see you're out there with this informative site!
And I wondered, as I did it, why I searched for you after all this time, on a whim (or so I thought at the time). Not anymore. Not after I read your site.
Kar**
Thank You Kar: And you will be pleased to know I finally understand Post Traumatic Shock Disorder. I had to get it to "get it" but now I understand. I am wishing you what I always wished for you - to find the beautiful self that was taken from you when you were an innocent child because she is all you ever needed to be happy and to be free. Love her, forgive her, cherish her for it really was not your fault and certainly not her fault. NONE OF IT! Blessings to you, on you, all around you. I am with you on the path.
Cats are incredible loving beings, aren't they? Marriah proved more observant and caring in a timely manner than my own family doctor ... long story.
Here she is right now, as if on cue, jumping into my lap. "Meow," she says.
Good to see they didn't break your spirit to the point of shutting you up.
Me, I'm an aspie and an artist, as I was to begin with.
Bright and dark blessings to you and those around you!
Kar**
Marriah came to you as Gypsy Rose came to me. She is pushing my fingers on the key board as I write and power puring -- What is an aspi?
An "aspie" is someone who fits the Aspergers profile (which is on the Autism spectrum).
I don't know if you remember, you probably do, but at one time I had once considered S. Fox for a therapist, as I had seen her card tacked up on the notice board in a cafe in Spring Green. I think you said her credibility in court was shot, at the time?
Well, that may have been but I did recognize some good stuff when I saw it, and so I went on to read her stuff about P. In Recovery and later *compared* her stuff to what another elder and author by the initials of I.B. wrote on recovery (I'm thorough that way). At the time, I was still looking deeper and deeper into how and why I could have ever ended up with an abusive addict or why my mother kept unsuccessfully trying to pull me into codependent behaviors…in a non-addict family. I was yet again finding out just how much codependent behaviors, while discussed at length in sites about addictions, occur among non-addicts as well -- abuse is abuse, alcoholism is just another form of abuse, and codependent and other behaviors run through *various* dysfunctional scenarios, not just those of addicts, in particular.
To make a long story short, it was something that the latter author and elder wrote that contributed to the start of a discovery process regarding family and myself. That in turn, by the way, recently led to early and recent diagnosis of Autism for my two-year-old grandson.
Once again it was an elder who proved far more astute (in a timely manner) in a few words or a single page -- you also have that capability too, yes you do.
I earned that capability as well, in my own right. I went on to write online for five years, yet writing is something I recently cut back on in favor of the visual arts, for the moment.
I'm still considering writing, something I've been encouraged in, but will now do it only if I'll get paid or more officially published in some manner.
As for the visual arts, I'm sculpting dragons right now (maybe I’ll get around to that purple one from my dreams). I could, however, switch to sculpting cats for a good cause and some good money.
"Art to save the cats" would be a good cause and movement, help some artists and help some cats. I like those win-win situations, though I didn’t write you to get around to this but now that it’s occurred to me while I’m been yammering … why not? Art does sometime move people when other things fail.
Done any art lately?
Kar**
I have NO memory of a Fox or why she was discredited but so am I discredited so I know being discredited is almost a badge of honor in today's legal system. You would never believe who the Dodgeville bar had as their president when I left but you would remember the name and barf. He was involved in our case, is short, thin and limps. He as GAL actually bribed my clients to fire me with a promise of better custody arrangements if they would get rid of me. Not once, not twice but three times. I finally had the clients sign an affidavit and gave it to the judge stating that he had offered them better visitation in exchange." You will not be surprised to learn that the judge did nothing and next year they elected him president of the local bar. So much for credit and honor.
If you have a website put it up there in the URL line so I can see it. I have urges to do art but I have all 12 rooms crammed into this hovel I dwell in now. I can barely turn around much less make a space to paint and there are other reasons that I push away from consciousness. I am involved with writing and that is it. And gardening with the kittens in the back yard which is sealed up like a fortress.
and in regard to don't shoot the cat, I am reading "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout, Ph.d.
It is really good but she sadly underestimates the amount out there and she draws a hard line - this is a sociopath - this one is not a sociopath -- I do not think it is like that - I think there is a continuum of sociopaths with "normal" people on one end and Mr and Mrs Satan from Hell on the other and all the rest of us somewhere in between depending on life circumstances.
The short version:
Mean people suck!
The longer version:
Selena F. of C.S. had a degree in and practiced counseling/therapy in my former general geographical area, and she could be considered another discredited woman by some. As for Selena’s credibility in court or elsewhere, I find it very hard to know and refuse to think I know what was truth, rumor, or lies. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was why you only mentioned a concern about her credibility in court in passing (when I considered her in passing) and didn’t get into explaining it at all past that. Of course that only made me more curious and I went and read some of her stuff and about C.S. as it was not far.
I find what happened to you quite believable since the corruption, abuse and deception extended across the range from what you dealt with to what others and I saw of strangely “unquestionable” judges, social workers, doctors, and some foster parents. That too much dysfunction, abuse, and corruption spread throughout many of very offices, departments and the very agencies supposedly meant to make this world a better place was no coincidence.
This is like a puzzle to figure out...Stuff like this boggles my mind.
While isolated cases of corruption and abuse of power can sometimes be more easily and directly explained by individuals’ lust for power, position and ability to get away with crap there is also something I learned from my business psychology class that’s highly applicable -- The ones in position of authority set the ethical tone and social-political-religious climate in groups/business/law/politics. If you have people in positions of authority who are prone to shows of power, “crazy making” psychology seen in abusers, and unethical behavior then the potential is there for all heck to break loose on many levels, agencies and even in backyards.
That, to me, helps explain how abuse and corruption becomes so widespread and why some can find themselves targets of both the nasty but all too common variety abusers and bewildering prolonged “special treatment” visited upon them from people who “couldn’t possibly or logically be in league with each other.” (They have the same basic psychology.) Valid points and observations as well as competing world views may be treated in a hostile manner and can and will be sometimes used against you (overtly or indirectly) to make you seem “mentally unstable” or “not credible.” Any struggle tightened the bind you were in; they had you in their grip and meant to brand you. They just do it differently to different people and I just didn’t think they could or would want to do it to you. I hope they get theirs and I’m glad you moved.
They made a lot of people feel as if they might as well have stamped “N.C.” their forehead with big red letters for “not credible” (comparable to the effect a scarlet letter “A” would have).
I had indeed read about you getting disbarred a while back (was easy to find on the Net when I was wondering what you were up to) but I had not heard about the rest (still reading it off and on and again) until now.
Over the years not only my older kids but also two sets of foster parents reached out to me to spill some beans about how they too were mistreated, "dealt with" and discredited. I noticed something about those particular foster parents – they refused to “unwittingly” and all too routinely discredit parents and kids while accepting that others, like that H.P. worker, were ever and always “unquestionable” and correct. Those foster parents in particular had ethical stamina, in my opinion, and that could get people hurt it seems.
One of the kids and I sat helpless as H.P. (the brunette worker we had) lied to the court, did you know that? It wasn’t merely her “rendition” of facts that was off that time. No. She positively lied, how puzzling and traumatizing for us, and she got away with it too. I thought about that when I read about you getting beaten and how puzzling and traumatizing it must have been.
What H.P. was doing with cases and why she was doing it also was about money – big business.
DNR is about big business and number of people involved in it as well?
This occurred to me as well. The problem with many of the positions of authority and agencies is that they were designed to have power over others rather than helping others to empower themselves. (There you were, encouraging people to be empowered and responsible.) Now, I realize the need for some balance in such things and that we need authorities who can exert power over others as their experience and better judgment see fit. However, it is the “rather than” part of their equation that throws things out of balance and invites the wrong people who are in it for the wrong reasons.
Due to potentials regarding safety, privacy, my level of disclosure here and elsewhere as well as my beliefs, and the age of some of my younger kids …I chose to write somewhat anonymously (nicknames are good things) in a large online community for years rather than write on my own private website. I'd rather not link up that community name and my comments here. Not in online comments anyway.
Kar**
The short version:
Mean people suck!
The longer version:
Selena F. of C.S. had a degree in and practiced counseling/therapy in my former general geographical area, and she could be considered another discredited woman by some. As for Selena’s credibility in court or elsewhere, I find it very hard to know and refuse to think I know what was truth, rumor, or lies. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was why you only mentioned a concern about her credibility in court in passing (when I considered her in passing) and didn’t get into explaining it at all past that. Of course that only made me more curious and I went and read some of her stuff and about C.S. as it was not far.
I find what happened to you quite believable since the corruption, abuse and deception extended across the range from what you dealt with to what others and I saw of strangely “unquestionable” judges, social workers, doctors, and some foster parents. That too much dysfunction, abuse, and corruption spread throughout many of very offices, departments and the very agencies supposedly meant to make this world a better place was no coincidence.
This is like a puzzle to figure out...Stuff like this boggles my mind.
While isolated cases of corruption and abuse of power can sometimes be more easily and directly explained by individuals’ lust for power, position and ability to get away with crap there is also something I learned from my business psychology class that’s highly applicable -- The ones in position of authority set the ethical tone and social-political-religious climate in groups/business/law/politics. If you have people in positions of authority who are prone to shows of power, “crazy making” psychology seen in abusers, and unethical behavior then the potential is there for all heck to break loose on many levels, agencies and even in backyards.
That, to me, helps explain how abuse and corruption becomes so widespread and why some can find themselves targets of both the nasty but all too common variety abusers and bewildering prolonged “special treatment” visited upon them from people who “couldn’t possibly or logically be in league with each other.” (They have the same basic psychology.) Valid points and observations as well as competing world views may be treated in a hostile manner and can and will be sometimes used against you (overtly or indirectly) to make you seem “mentally unstable” or “not credible.” Any struggle tightened the bind you were in; they had you in their grip and meant to brand you. They just do it differently to different people and I just didn’t think they could or would want to do it to you. I hope they get theirs and I’m glad you moved.
They made a lot of people feel as if they might as well have stamped “N.C.” their forehead with big red letters for “not credible” (comparable to the effect a scarlet letter “A” would have).
I had indeed read about you getting disbarred a while back (was easy to find on the Net when I was wondering what you were up to) but I had not heard about the rest (still reading it off and on and again) until now.
Over the years not only my older kids but also two sets of foster parents reached out to me to spill some beans about how they too were mistreated, "dealt with" and discredited. I noticed something about those particular foster parents – they refused to “unwittingly” and all too routinely discredit parents and kids while accepting that others, like that H.P. worker, were ever and always “unquestionable” and correct. Those foster parents in particular had ethical stamina, in my opinion, and that could get people hurt it seems.
One of the kids and I sat helpless as H.P. (the brunette worker we had) lied to the court, did you know that? It wasn’t merely her “rendition” of facts that was off that time. No. She positively lied, how puzzling and traumatizing for us, and she got away with it too. I thought about that when I read about you getting beaten and how puzzling and traumatizing it must have been.
What H.P. was doing with cases and why she was doing it also was about money – big business.
DNR is about big business and number of people involved in it as well?
This occurred to me as well. The problem with many of the positions of authority and agencies is that they were designed to have power over others rather than helping others to empower themselves. (There you were, encouraging people to be empowered and responsible.) Now, I realize the need for some balance in such things and that we need authorities who can exert power over others as their experience and better judgment see fit. However, it is the “rather than” part of their equation that throws things out of balance and invites the wrong people who are in it for the wrong reasons.
Due to potentials regarding safety, privacy, my level of disclosure here and elsewhere as well as my beliefs, and the age of some of my younger kids …I chose to write somewhat anonymously (nicknames are good things) in a large online community for years rather than write on my own private website. I'd rather not link up that community name and my comments here. Not in online comments anyway.
Kar**
Ah, I was interrupted when writing my last comment above, came back hours later and hit enter. I just now saw what you wrote and feel both of our last comments (I just now read yours) are saying (only in different ways) that there is a range...a continuum of sociopaths with "normal" people rather than a sharp and clear division between.
Kar**
"That, to me, helps explain how abuse and corruption becomes so widespread and why some can find themselves targets of both the nasty but all too common variety abusers and bewildering prolonged “special treatment” visited upon them from people who “couldn’t possibly or logically be in league with each other.” (They have the same basic psychology.) Valid points and observations as well as competing world views may be treated in a hostile manner and can and will be sometimes used against you (overtly or indirectly) to make you seem “mentally unstable” or “not credible.” Any struggle tightened the bind you were in; they had you in their grip and meant to brand you. They just do it differently to different people and I just didn’t think they could or would want to do it to you. I hope they get theirs and I’m glad you moved."
Kar - this analysis above is brilliant. You, as I, have been working hard on trying to understand "the bewildering prolonged “special treatment” visited upon them (us) from people who “couldn’t possibly or logically be in league with each other.”
We HAVE to understand this because we know what we experienced and we know other people have blamed us when we were the victim of a sociopath. Unfair blame combined with guilt because we could not save those who depended on us added up to Post Traumatic Shock Disorder.
So those of us who do NOT want to shoot the judge and prosecutor try to make sense of what so many did to us with words and writing. Actually that is all we have - let us hope that the pen is really mightier than the sword.
Oh yeah, now that you say Selena I know who she is. Yeah it would have taken the opposition 3 seconds to discredit her in a dodgeville court and you and I both know why. You were my client and my priority - I had to protect you first so she was not an option.
When they had me down and almost crushed in Deadville, the cops got the kids to paintball my house several times and actually called me a witch when they justified doing it.
I was not disbarred - I was suspended for 90 days - but the OLR wants me to pay the costs of their prosecution of me and I will not. It was initiated by that GAL I spoke of above - he convinced some of his criminal kidnapping child molester clients to bring complaints against me and he finally got me out of his kingdom that way. I was found not at fault for most of his crap. I was found at fault for being rude to a kidnapper who left the children she transported across state lines to give to child molesters. I raised my voice to her. (Can you believe this crap?)
Then the Bar ignored its' own rules and wanted me to return half a fee to someone who lied about child abuse; and fired me a week before trial when he found out I would not lie for him or allow him to lie about his wife. I would not return his fee and I will not pay their costs. Therefore I will never get my license back.
I never felt I was helping people as an attorney - I never actually was satisfied with what I did and there were so many parents who hated me when I would not use their kid or allow them to do it. And the GAL and social workers who were there to help the kids actually would be put in prison for child abuse in a just world.
Heather DID lie and I caught her in it and threatened to expose her on another case where she took a child from a group home which the child loved and returned her to an abusive situation - just as the girl was starting to trust and get well. Heather tried to take all the children out of that home for money's sake. It cost more to keep them there in the country, in nature - where they were recovering than to stick them in some foster home or back with the abuser under the guise of "reuniting the family". Heather bribed the child with illicit activities so the child would stop protesting the move. And of course that means the child became a juvenile delinquent who will eventually be a street criminal of some kind if not a child abuser.
Oh there was so much shit and I would not go along. They worked on another girl to write the court and ask for a new GAL. And that broke my heart for I knew what would happen to the child when I was off the case. And it did. I was trying to get her into therapy - to prepare herself for college - to tell her there would be no more money when she was 18 and we had to prepare. They wanted her to be a cheerleader - her male social worker said that was the best thing for her and I should butt out - he knew best. She IS on the street now and he went off to corrupt more children at a different agency.
But these assholes can make you look bad by bribing the victims who they are supposed to protect - they have no conscious and they do it. Normal people cannot believe that such evil exists. I could not believe it when I was experiencing it. I could not believe the things that happened to you half the time. Remember that time you were run off the road?
Shit - that is why I don't care - they can use my license for toilet paper because their system is one big toilet and they are flushing us all down it.
Yes, I remember getting run off the road while returning from a scheduled appointment that numerous people would have had opportunity to know about and in fact did know about. That accident was another odd coincidence I will never be sure about regarding the “who, what, how, or why” of it. Some things seem too entirely ridiculous to entertain thoughts of…and yet….
The guy who ran me off the road was fully upright, his gaze possibly (hard to tell) right on me, yet curiously he did not respond (didn’t turn or flinch or anything) but just kept coming at me and then left the scene of the accident. How much witnesses did or didn’t see is not clear to me except for this -- No one got his license plate number.
The accident happened within three days of starting the college semester and I was a new hire still in training at you-know-where at the time. “A” has permanent nerve damage from that accident.
I was run off the road yet again some time later. I saw two huge trucks coming down the lonely stretch of two-lane country highway, side by side (absolutely side by side) as if in formation and they stayed like that, making no move to correct their behavior. I had no choice but to pull off the road. Since there was no accident with that incident it did not get the attention the other one got – it was just another oddity in a long string of oddities. That one, odd as it was, was more like childish bullying than the first more ominous and painful incident.
I had the audacity to go to college and work in the face of not getting any child support (the grand total of child support I received since ’94 remains at 300 dollars even to this day, by the way, but then it’s best to allow the ex to remain a fugitive living under an alias). H.P. convinced others I was not a good mother for doing so! Because I worked and went to college and worked! That still gets me.
Did you know that H.P. had me go to counseling sessions with one other woman who was supposedly “like me?” (A certain faith based organization provided the therapists and therapy for some time, remember) This other woman seemed to have been picked for a purpose. During counseling sessions that oddly included this other woman, she was a client not a therapist mind you; she spoke to me at length more than the therapist. Her/their point? She was on her third marriage/relationship (the present one supposedly just fine and dandy, heh), yes her last one *also* ended because of horrific abuse that scarred her boy (which was why that boy of hers was in the next room for anger management therapy), probably irreparably, but she was basically “proselytizing” to me at length that I should give a relationship with a man a chance. That’s what the therapy was about for a while, it seemed. The therapist agreed with what she said and it felt like they were both “working on me.” At the time I wasn't dating. People from this same (faith based) organization queried me on my sexual orientation in a probing but “safe” round about way. Did I tell you that?
Since these therapists also visited my home, my arrangement of artificial flowers that included a statue of a lady on my living room table got me questioned regarding it looking like “an altar.” Strange, that they used *that* word with that tone. I did not admit it was “an altar” and there was no pentacle or anything occult, for cripes sakes. It was arranged nicely and with an eye for aesthetics, for sure. Anyway, I did not yield and I did not date (for four years, it turned out) because I was heeding the sage advice that if it took that many years to get hurt, healing would take years … and until then I would probably attract the wrong guys. So I didn't date for quite some time as I worked on my life and worked on healing.
I once wondered, with the funny little ways they were acting, if they thought you and I were …ah…. heh. Oh, that is laughable. I’m not even going to say it.
The odd thing was that H.P. et al held their position, just like those truckers did that one day, regardless of all progress or the facts involved -- that remained true until H.P. and at least one other left the D. office. Within months of them leaving things changed rapidly -- doors that were once shut for years were suddenly open.
Reading what you wrote about some of what happened to so many people (about other people's kids, not just mine, and about your own life), the "depth perception" settling in cranks open my mind, spirit and heart another couple of notches. Yes, it affect me holistically, and I feel as if I plugged into a lot of others' pain in such moments of realization -- very painful clarity that's at once strangely liberating and healing even as it is horrifying.
Others saw. Others knew. Others felt some of the same things I did from different perspectives.
That, Ginnie, is what many cannot bare to see, feel, or admit because not only is it hard to realize personal pain but it’s also hard to be receptive regarding others’ pain and the scope of it all.
I had to stop and walk around between your paragraphs several times and take some deep breaths.
Even now.
They shoot cats, don’t they?
Kar
I am actually sickened to know about that counseling situation. Yes, everyone always thinks I am a lesbian. I have grown so used to it I do not even get angry any more. This thinking is so pervasive I myself have actually started to think everyone I meet who is single is a gay person. The concept of a heterosexual person choosing to live without a mate is totally incomprehensible to mass culture. It infects everyone, even me, and I know better from actual experience (my OWN experience). I am a heterosexual who will never marry or even live with anyone ever again. I did my share of experimenting and I have learned a lot about sexuality - mostly that it is not about the gender of your partner. Mostly, that it is badly over hyped. Mostly, that if you want something done right, you should do it yourself.
I think it is pathetic how all these men are taking pills to have sex with women who would prefer a vibrator anyway.
But those stupid idiots in Dodgeville with their small minds always thought I was a lesbian. Especially when I cut my hair short. That was it. They were sure then. And actually, to be fair, it is not just Dodgeville; it is everyone, everywhere. I am a feminist leader (was), have short hair, am single, love my cats, make no effort to charm or manipulate people, people assume they understand my sexuality. Fine.
But the thought that they would dare think that I would take advantage of my position to have a sexual relationship with a client or a woman in a group I was mentoring is so outrageous that I am physically sick. I have never, never done that despite many opportunities to do so. I think that would be a morally incorrect thing to do. An abuse of a power position. For me, it would be like eating the flesh of an animal or molesting a child. Barbaric.
And it is maddening that they would dare spread this lie because they are the ones who actually do it all the time.
Those happily married so called heterosexual normal people. Such AS, the social worker that wanted to see that foster child be a cheerleader. That was his blatant sexual fantasy being played out on a dependent. But no one in that social service network sent him into therapy to overcome a perceived perversion.
Oh I am sick with this. I am very sorry that happened to you Kar. That was the exact wrong thing for them to do to you - the exactly wrong thing. It is only your phenomenal strength that let you survive that intact mentally. You HAVE to read "The Sociopath Next Door" by Martha Stout.
Obviously Heather P is one and you will recognize what she did in Chapter 4, in the person of Doreen Littlefield. I recognized Helen Dombeck and now in hindsight obviously a lot of lie rumors were started by Heather P in the pathological way of the sociopath. And the only reason I do not give her full name is to protect YOUR privacy. Man, how people survive this stuff is a miracle but a lot of people do not survive.
It makes me angry that these predators are in positions of power within the legal system. Is it any wonder that they, intoxicated with the power they have used over the helpless for so long, have grown so bold as to ask brazenly for the right to shoot our cats in public instead of in private as they have been doing for years?
I do have to say that I found a very good man; it’s been over four years since we got married, and we’re still very much in love. Already he has stuck through some pretty hard times for me (helping W and my health problems continued but things have been getting better). Waiting as long as I did to date, knowing you, doing all that reading and healing as I did and then having the relationship with that Indian Doctor (whom I will call “J”) all added up to a sexual, spiritual, intellectual and social healing. I don’t think I would have quite grown in awareness as I did if I had never known you. I don’t think I would have ever been ready to have the healthy relationship and marriage I have now if had I never known J. I saw him in dreams and fantasies for some time prior to ever knowing he actually existed and prior to his family moving in the area… as if I “called him” to my town and into my life. If I did so then that is another choice I chose to make in my life, and yet I totally respect the series of choices you made as well.
I will say one thing about predators and abusers who create dark unbalanced tilted dichotomies and energies that they push on others…for me that meant I choose that the pendulum swung the other way and I’ve repeatedly had the incredible fortune of having some pretty phenomenal people in my life or that had/have tremendously positive impact on me (like you), one way or another, and that makes such a difference--I don’t think I would have met or known of any of them had I not gone through such “trials by fire.”
That brings me to this: I wish I could see into the future because I wonder if society will evolve to the point that it doesn’t take the pendulum swinging quite so wildly between horrific abuse to caring adepts/others and perhaps the widespread emotional retardation seen and allowed today will just not exist – there will be higher ground. Can that happen? Can our species evolve that far, in terms of intellectual, spiritual, and emotional intelligence?
From One extreme …
Yes, certain energies and efforts were very much aimed specifically at those with ethical stamina (me, you, certain foster parents) as well as vulnerable children and former domestic abuse victims--the very people put in their path on a regular basis. We saw a lot of codependent behaviors that enabled “those inclined” in the legal, judicial, therapeutic and social services arenas. Yes, it was intoxicating for them. Yes, sometimes we saw stark parallels to the behaviors of sociopaths and alcoholics both.
To Another Extreme …
Yes, they certainly did try to wear the children down to their level (ethically and otherwise). They confused kids and adults as to who was okay and right and who was not stable or credible, something which hurt H’s & W’s relationship with “self” as well as with A, S, and I. All of us were pushed to ignore or distrust our own intellect and intuition, just as K (the ex) had done. Intuition work I did was implemental and crucial.
Due to the sanctioned rampant unchecked and widespread nature of such behaviors, we were again treated to being “overwhelmed,” at tax payers’ expense, and low and behold while I was going through this several professionals only got the PTSD part of the diagnosis correct and one predicted I was and would continue to be “easily overwhelmed” not because of what was happening around me but because of me (an “either / or” fallacy). That I fit the Aspergers profile was completely missed. Successful psychologists can make the best unwitting pawns as the brilliant educated idiots they chose to be. They may “neurotypically” and compulsively peg/diagnose people according fads/wisdoms of their time much like slamming round pegs (pet diagnosis) into square holes. To diagnose any other way may be academic and professional suicide. Their egos desire academic & social recognition to the point that I can well imagine some professionals stroking their achievements and overblown sense of “en-title-ment” muttering “my precious.” (See following, ignore the birthday portion of the message, notice what he’s reading in http://img-nex.theonering.net/images/scrapbook/orig/12914_orig.jpg … and somehow I think a few people you knew will come to mind.)
It takes a bit of genius or awareness, it doesn’t matter which, to simply see the nature of what ‘s before a person, question, ponder, pay attention and figure the puzzle (read “get the diagnosis right” in his case).
For reasons like the above and others, psychology and the brain sciences remain in their infancy.
To Barreling Down the Middle of the Road …
They, H.P. et al, made appearances of taking the middle of the road and that, oddly enough, was exactly the position of the guy who ran me off the road -- they had no remorse, for they were "normal." They were steady (seen as “stable”).
My Health Derailed …
They couldn’t kill my spirit but I wonder if what they did contributed to my very body failing me. Stress and heartbreak can sometimes go from extreme dis-ease to disease/illness, especially if prolonged and nasty enough. I went into thyroid failure, which went undiagnosed for a number of years despite classic symptoms. The same doctor who failed to diagnose my condition also questioned me about my sexual practices. Being that my (easily diagnosed!) condition was allowed to progress quite far, it meant I had gynecological symptoms and he used those to probe instead of diagnose me in a timely basis. You saw me, at a L.E sale I think, when it started to show and said something along the lines that you hardly recognized me. That could be why. Illness and unrelenting incredible stress changed my face, my weight and general appearance. I came to within one class of getting that degree I fought for, and in fact at one time thought I had achieved it (long story short, they didn’t count one class toward the degree after I had gotten a 4.0 in it). Because my condition was undiagnosed for so long, I lost a total of an inch and a half in height, my ovaries cysted up, my cholesterol at one point skyrocketed by several hundred points and while studying I found myself reading the same paragraph over and over again, not able to understand and remember what I had just read (yeah, me). I became disoriented in the cold one night, coming out of work, fell, and nearly couldn’t figure out where my car was. I was mistaken for a man on the phone; even my voice was altered at times (it changed as my levels did). I constantly couldn’t remember where I parked my car and experienced numerous other severely embarrassing problems associated with the advanced condition. Muscle spasms became so severe and painful that I was concerned about driving. I finally got diagnosed in the end of ’99.
Can any one diagnose properly out there? Okay, that’s partially unfair; they can get some things right, some of them.
Ah, Yes, Sociopaths …
Sociopaths often do use charm or position to appear normal as they hurt others without remorse, yes. I want to read that book you mentioned.
The Dark Arts …
The worst liars do mix truths in with the lies to confuse, mix issues, and mislead. It’s pathetically so easy to do these things to the general population, unfortunately. I don’t quite understand why and yet I’ve seen it done so many times and most cannot recognize it or call it for what it is. (I do know how I grew into a “higher consciousness.”) Theirs is a dark art and H.P. was definitely practicing “dark arts” -- While doing so she liked to be seen as the savior of many children by virtue of her job. What a false dichotomy she had going on! But then, people in this society and many others are used to false dichotomies, even to the theological level, and I swear most of them couldn’t recognize a false dichotomy if it had teeth and bit them in the butt.
What Level of Awareness is Society Ready For?
I don't think most of society is yet ready for the level of awareness that allows for acknowledging that "man's inhumanity to man" is not as far removed as they'd like it to be (it’s right beneath their noses dressed up as something else, like GALs, priests or s. workers) or that there is no clear division between sociopathic behaviors and "more social" ones.
Here’s the thing: Most don’t know how to recognize, name, or better confront/navigate troubling issues and behaviors and until enough people do then those who can see what is going on and who have ethical stamina will continue “to be” (think E-prime and issues having to with insipient social-religious indoctrination) “a threat/danger/risk” and entirely too easy to black list, railroad, run off the road, or get push out of “little kingdoms,” one way or another. It doesn’t have to be true only of those of alternate religions. It can happen to anyone who is sufficiently aware, ethical, and outspoken (such as an activist) because that makes you a risk to people who want to get away with “ungodly crap.”
Oh, of course they’ll try to make you pay for the privilege of being treated that way -- It’s the highway robbery and serfdom-lord mentality all over again! My husband was telling me that when he came to this state from California, he was told, “Welcome to the 1960’s,” indicating that it’s a bit more backward in these parts. I’m thinking, “1960’s? No, go back a bit further.”
The choice of news stories in our nation over the last ten years seems to indicate a trend of some growing awareness mixed in with incredible confusion – society is clearly grappling with a number of issues and we notice things such as the taboo and barrier of ever questioning a priest was finally broken through and society became aware that priests used the children as they used their position and the unconditional trust granted to them.
The division is the illusion … most that have read have heard that before. Still people cannot quite fathom that the division (between sociopathic or other very dark behaviors and society at large) is the illusion or that society often unwittingly and wittingly enables and condones sociopathic behaviors. They cannot quite imagine that going to church, being married, holding a “respectable job/position” or being social does not make people “safe.”
The BTK killer, whom I understand to have confessed, was social, used his job position, and did what he did--He was a sociopathic killer. The woman who lured a pregnant woman into contact with her only to strangle, cut her open, and take the baby, well, what were she and her husband doing within hours of her committing this heinous crime? Showing off the baby, all “social like.” She was a womb-ripping sociopathic killer.
Ginnie, after the Jeffrey Dahmer case and many others, I thought it was well understood and widely known that behavior towards animals/pets was a good indicator of how people will treat other people, but ... apparently not, for there now is this very publicly supported push to shoot cats. The question that begs is this: Is it any mistake that some are trying to push towards “backwards” in a known backwards area just as a nation is struggling to understand more regarding the related issues we’ve been talking about? That too is no coincidence. Progress threatens those with “narrow programming” and backward ways that hurt and things will likely get worse before they get better … and yet the evolution of humanity’s awareness presses on.
Hopefully we won’t kill the planet and all those precious songbirds (that the cat killers profess to want to save) before then.
Now I feel the need to fall silent for a while and go into an “art mode.” Paper Mache! (Inspiring artist into that medium: http://www.alk-animals.com/ )
Kar
First of all, I agree with everything you said and you say it very well (you SHOULD write professionally).
I take time to reply here because the art link you sent is unbelievably important to me right now. I cannot believe you sent this as it connects so perfectly with things other people have done to help me. I cannot tell you why here but it is incredible that you sent me this today. I think you know why but I can say no more here. Thank you for that link I really, really appreciate it.
If you ever want or need to e-mail me do it through my webmaster "Get Sirius". See the bottom of my web pages, click on his name, go to his site and you will find his e-mail address. Send the message to him and tell him to forward it to me. Tell him I said you could do it. He is one of my best friends now.
If you want to be put on the list of feminists who are working to influence the Office of Women's Initiatives in the state dept to include battered & abused women's shelter/villages in their funded regional women's centers in Afghanistan and Iraq, send Chuck (at Get Sirius) your e-mail address, tell him to forward it to me for the feminist list and I will put you on the mailing list.
You will receive an organizing letter that tells you how to prepare yourself. We expect the women on that list to write articles and letters to attempt to influence the strategy planing in the state dept.
And in answer to your question: When we reconcile the extremes and shadows in our own hearts - they will be cured in the world.
Remember when you used to wonder about your shadow? There is a great site and book on that: now.http://www.llewellyn.com/mpq/index.php?tab=intro
Good Luck - Blessings and thank you for your wise and kind thoughts Kar and the gift of the art link.
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