The Mandarins and the Masses

With special guests:

• Amfortas

Over the past week father’s activists around Australia have been appalled by announcements from the Australian Labor government that it intends winding back the 2006 reforms to family law which promoted more cooperative arrangements after divorce or separation.

The government is conduction three separate inquiries into family law, inappropriately linking the inquiries with domestic violence. Not one of them consults the views of fathers or even the general public. There could be no clearer case of the mandarins regarding the great unwashed with contempt and not trusting their opinions, because after all there is strong public support for shared parenting.

Against this background, this week we play samples from the compelling podcasts compiled by a private practicing psychologist with 25 years experience who is driven by his own experiences and the experiences of many of his clients. He goes by the handle Amfortas, after the keeper of the Holy Grail. “I am a Men’s rights activist who is fighting against the excesses of feminism and the deleterious affects they are having on our public policies, particularly as they affect families and children,” he says. “I am not at all embarrassed by the use of the term Men’s rights, even if its unfashionable. Men’s rights are part of human rights.”

Arrogantly, the government is not even pretending to consult dads. One report is by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, often referred to as The Australian Institute of Feminist Studies because of its repeated failure to take Men’s issues seriously. The next is by the Law Council of Australia, who’s feminist stances are also well known. And finally retired Family Court judge Richard Chisholm is conducting another review. His open hostility to shared parenting is well known and he is perceived by many as displaying the worst characteristics of the old style of Family Court, which almost invariably treated fathers with contempt. It was Chisholm who several years ago showed his true stripes by ridiculing separated fathers in a ditty he performed at a family law conference. Thanks to his blatant biases, many see his appointment as entirely inappropriate.

A better choice would have been Michael Green QC, author of the book Shared Parenting. That this government is prepared to overthrow the popular reforms to our despised family law system and return the country to the dark ages when the majority of fathers entering the court rarely if ever saw their children again defies belief. The government’s kow towing to the wild exaggerations of the taxpayer funded domestic violence industry and the peddling of hysterical hatred against men has sickened many.

The podcasts compiled by Amfortas can be found at http://www.soundcloud.com

In the Stolen Generation podcast he declares: “There is no suggestion that obstructing the child’s relationship with the noncustodial parent or undermining his or her parental authority is to be considered abuse or neglect. The sole custody model is first stage parental alienation. Parental alienation is child abuse. It follows that the sole custody model is child abuse.” The podcasts provide a professional analysis of the Family Court’s ‘Bible’ - In The Best Interests of Children: The Least Detrimental Alternative - that justifies the ‘ least detrimental alternatives’ to the traditional family. “We have a generation of fathers who are shell-shocked, heartbroken,” he says.

“It was Adolph Hitler who first said that people will take any reduction to their freedom if you tell them it is in the best interests of the children. Could we not have a non-detrimental alternative?” He argues The Family Court’s culture and style of orders bring about the detrimental conditions that lead to a delinquent culture of fatherlessness in children. “The ‘most deserving parent’ is chosen on genitalia,” he says. “Professionals make judgements that cause parental alienation syndrome. A juggernaut is driven over Magna Carta. An equal society is replaced by a superior class of people.”

We close the show listening to his podcast Give a Dog a Bad Name, in which he argues the mass media is anti-male by commercial design. “Comprehensive study data shows the depth of disrespect for men,” he says. “Even ‘Old-school’ feminists are appalled at the damage being done to men. The media is wrong, both factually and morally. Government pays for an agitprop war on Men’s reputation to frighten women. At what cost?”

Next week: DOTA’s Canadian Special, with Member of Parliament Roger Galloway, family lawyer Karen Selick and retired professor of Men’s Studies.Jeffrey Asher.

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