Jessica Stern's DENIAL

An abbreviated version of this book review appears at
http://www.projo.com/books/content/BOOK-DENIAL_08-08-10_OVJ8VD2_v11.5771ca.html

When I read Jessica Stern’s Terror in the Name of God in 2003, I wondered how she could walk fearlessly into terrorist strongholds to interview warlords, a practice that got her colleague Daniel Pearl beheaded. She answers that question in her latest book, Denial, as she explores fragments of her childhood that she had been hiding from herself and others.

Stern and her younger sister were barely toddlers when their mother, fighting cancer, died from radiation experiments by their grandfather, a physician who had lost his hospital privileges. He had already begun sexually grooming Jessica, taking her into the shower, causing recurrent nightmares of a “sickeningly soft white slug” that spoke nauseating things to her.

In 1973, the sisters were young teens, their father in Europe with his third wife, when a stranger with a gun broke into the home where they were staying, forced them to put on little girl’s clothes, and raped them. Police in the tranquil town of Concord, Massachusetts, refused to believe the girls did not know their assailant. The same pedophile had raped girls since 1971 with at least 44 victims around Concord, Cambridge, Natick, and Martha’s Vineyard. Police never warned those communities of the danger and closed the Sterns’ file when their father claimed his daughters had gotten over the ordeal.

Thirty-three years later, with Jessica Stern’s renewed interest, a Concord police lieutenant doggedly searched files from several towns and identified the serial rapist, who already had gone to prison, come home, and hung himself.

Stern interviews her rapist’s old friends and discovers a history of denial in his hometown, which had been afflicted by a succession of pedophile priests. Denial also dominated Stern’s father, whose Jewish family suffered appalling brutality in the Holocaust.

This startlingly honest memoir reveals the ways that ordinary people go numb in the face of unbearable truth and shows the damage this denial does to children whose outcries are not believed.

Readers who want linear narration may struggle with her extraordinary writing as Stern draws us into the foggy, repetitive texture of her own dissociating mind. She demonstrates the “irresistible” power of denial, not only for victims, but also “for bystanders who want to get on with their lives.”

Dissociation still overwhelms this expert with intolerable sleepiness or sudden hypervigilance. Her research assistant gently points out similarities between her and his father, who brought his PTSD symptoms home from Vietnam.

Stern describes the way Islamic terrorists rape little boys on Thursday nights to shame them into becoming fearless jihadists. Then, on Fridays, the rapists claim absolution.

Both Stern and her aging father find redemption through sharing their most unspeakable memories, and she dedicates the book to him.

Anne Grant ( parentingproject@cox.net ) writes about children traumatized by domestic violence, sexual abuse and legal abuse in blogs like LittleHostages and http://trophychild.blogspot.com

Thank you, Johann Hari and Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/congratulations-polanski_b_643566.html

JULY 13, 2010


Johann Hari, Columnist, London Independent
Posted: July 12, 2010 05:20 PM

Congratulations, Polanski-Defenders -- Now the Child-Rapist Walks Free!

So now we know. If you are a 44-year-old man, you can drug and anally rape a terrified 13-year-old girl as she sobs, says "no, no, no," and pleads for her asthma medication, and face no punishment at all. You just have to meet two criteria: (a) You have to run away and stay away for a few decades, and (b) You need to direct some good films. If you manage this, not only will you walk free. There will be a huge campaign to protect you from the "witch-hunt" of the laws forbidding child-rape, and you will be lauded as a hero.

Polanski admitted his crime before he ran away, and for years afterwards, he boasted from exile that every man wants to do what he did. He chuckled to one interviewer in 1979: "If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But... fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!"

But this is not enough, it seems, for the Swiss government to return him to the United States to face trial. They have found a legalistic loophole that enables them to let him go - while admitting "national interests" may be a factor in the release. This may be a reference to pressure from neighboring France to free their citizen. As a Swiss citizen, I think I can say without being offensive - we all remember the bargains Swiss governments have made in the past to preserve their "national interests." This is in a long tradition of helping criminals and calling it Swiss hard-headedness.

The campaign to release Polanski has leeched into the open a slew of attitudes that I thought were defeated a generation ago. Whoopi Goldberg said it wasn't "rape-rape." Others hinted darkly that she wasn't a virgin at the time of the rape. So if a 13 year old has been raped before, she's fair game for all future rapists?

The French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, who led the campaign, said a little bit of child molestation isn't his problem when Great Art is at stake. He wrote: "Am I repulsed by what he got up to? His behavior is not my business. I'm concerned about his movies. I like The Pianist and Rosemary's Baby." That's worth saying again: this campaign was led by a man who thinks the drugging and raping of a child is "not my business," when compared to a film about Satan inseminating Mia Farrow.

The novelist Robert Harris, who is a friend of Polanski's, said: "It strikes me as disgusting treatment." He wasn't talking about the child-rape. He was talking about the attempt to punish the child-rape. He said Polanski was being subjected to a "lynch mob." Where is this lynch mob? All I can see are people patiently suggesting the law should be enforced, and he should be given a fair and open trial. This is the polar opposite of a lynching: it is sober justice.

Do these defenders of Polanski understand what they are saying? Do they mean it? Harris has four children. If a great film director drugs and rapes them tomorrow, will he call the police, or will he say it would be "disgusting" to do so? Would he say the police and prosecutors trying to protect his children were a "lynch mob" and shoo them away? If the rapist ran off, would he say that after three decades on the run (boasting about his crime) he should walk free? I doubt it. So why do Harris' words suggest he thinks Polanski's victim is worth less than his own children?

Now the campaign has succeeded. So congratulations to Whoopi and Bernard and Robert: an unrepentant, bragging child-rapist won't face his day in court, thanks in part to you. Have fun at the victory party. But -- just a word of advice -- you might want to leave your daughters at home.


Johann Hari is a writer for the Independent.

Power & Control in the Courtroom

(Click once on this image to enlarge.)

Men who had battered women helped to develop the Power and Control Wheel at the Domestic Violence Intervention Project of Duluth, Minnesota. Methods they acknowledged using to control their partners are very similar to official behavior in the courtroom that seems like an extension of the batterer. Victims of domestic violence who suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often find the court triggers their symptoms. While the batterer can sit calmly in the courtroom, the victim of battering who suffers from PTSD may display reactions that lead the judge to incorrectly assume the batterer would be a better parent than the person who suffers PTSD.

Here are those behaviors as identified on the Power & Control Wheel and replicated in the courtroom:

INTIMIDATION: Making her afraid by using looks, actions, and gestures. Smashing things. Destroying her property. Abusing pets. Displaying weapons.

COURT’S INTIMIDATION: Making her afraid by looks, actions, gestures, loud voice, gavel, clinical reports, hostile behavior by court personnel. Threatening to remove and torment her children.

EMOTIONAL ABUSE: Putting her down. Making her feel bad about herself. Calling her names. Making her think she’s crazy. Playing mind games. Humiliating her. Making her feel guilty.

COURT’S EMOTIONAL ABUSE: Putting her down. Repeating lies about her without evidence. Playing mind games. Humiliating her. Making her feel guilty, accusing her of psychiatric disorders and “parental alienation.”

ISOLATION: Controlling what she does, who she sees and talks to, what she reads, and where she goes. Limiting her outside involvement. Using jealousy to justify actions.

COURT’S USE OF ISOLATION: Imposing gag orders that forbid her to discuss the case with anyone. Forbidding contact with domestic violence advocates, counselors, support groups, and friends for fear of losing her children, visitation rights, legal aid, etc.

MINIMIZING, DENYING, AND BLAMING: Making light of the abuse and not taking her concerns about it seriously. Saying the abuse didn’t happen. Shifting responsibility for abusive behavior. Saying she caused it.

COURT’S WAY OF MINIMIZING, DENYING, AND BLAMING: Referring to the case as "high-conflict" rather than "assaultive." Making light of the abuse. Ignoring her concerns. Blaming her without evidence of addiction, alcoholism, promiscuity, Munchausen’s disorder by proxy, parental alienation.

USING CHILDREN: Making her feel guilty about the children. Using the children to relay messages. Using visitation to harass her. Threatening to take the children away.

COURT’S WAY OF USING CHILDREN: Denying that she has protected the children. Refusing to hear or believe the children. Removing the children. Withholding visitation. Placing children with abusers.

ECONOMIC ABUSE: Preventing her from getting or keeping a job. Making her ask for money. Giving her an allowance. Taking her money. Not letting her know about or have access to family income.

COURT’S USE OF ECONOMIC ABUSE: Letting lawyers/clinicians charge exorbitant fees and favor the parent who pays. Not assuring adequate child support. Allowing frivolous motions and court schedules that lose her pay and jobs.

MALE PRIVILEGE: Treating her like a servant: making all the big decisions, acting like the “master of the castle,” being the one to define men’s and women’s roles.

JUDICIAL AUTHORITY: Making her feel inferior, “under the thumb,” powerless and insignificant in the courtroom. Limiting her authority with her children. Not letting her hear or correct comments made about her in court or chambers.

COERCION AND THREATS: Making and/or carrying out threats to do something to hurt her. Threatening to leave her, commit suicide, or report her to welfare. Making her drop charges. Making her do illegal things.

COURT’S COERCION AND THREATS: Making, carrying out threats to penalize, fine, subpoena, arrest, impound property, imprison, remove and terrorize children, deny visitation. Imposing mediation despite a history of violence.

Coin a Phrase

Writer Joan Dawson sent this article from the Santa Fe Reporter, noting it is the first article she's read that uses the term "domestic violence deniers." That term derives special force from the absurdity of Holocaust deniers. Coining phrases can provide adroit terminology and clinch a new insight.

For the complete article, go to
http://www.sfreporter.com/stories/man_up/5234/all/

MAN UP: THERE IS ANOTHER SIDE TO THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE STORY...


By: Corey Pein 12/16/2009

On the face of it, Joshua Gonze is a successful man.

A wealthy, fit and handsome 47-year-old executive at Thornburg Investment Management, Gonze has shared his financial expertise with CNBC, Bloomberg and USA Today. A vocal Libertarian, he campaigned for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign and organized “tea party” protests. A prominent member of Temple Beth Shalom, Gonze has described himself as “a happily married father in Santa Fe.”

Those words may have been true two years ago when they were published. But there is another side to this powerful man’s life, one that casts a troubling light on the views he has espoused.

Publicly, Gonze supports a controversial cause known as “fathers’ rights.” Less known is that for years, Gonze has been able to suppress and counter domestic abuse claims made by two former spouses. His latest ex-wife claims that on Aug. 18, Gonze threatened her with a 10-inch kitchen knife and “waterboarded” their 2-year-old daughter during a dispute over custody. On Dec. 1, in an open courtroom in Santa Fe, Gonze withdrew his own petition, in which he claimed his wife had lied about the incident, and that she was the “abusive” one prone to “hysterical rage.”

Gonze also has been the subject of numerous 911 calls. And a former court officer claims Gonze stalked her after a series of rulings didn’t go his way.

Gonze appears to have avoided the usual consequences of such actions. Although his second wife worked in a local newsroom, the multiple allegations against Gonze never so much as made its police blotter. In fact, Gonze may have influenced the system in his favor by spearheading a law that limits wealthy men’s child support liability.

Gonze was helped in that effort by Albuquerque lawyer David Standridge, who stood beside him in a court at the beginning of the month. Standridge is a theological men’s advocate: He has written in praise of the “warrior life,” defined as “violent men” who rule their households.

Indeed, the men’s movement that Gonze and Standridge belong to is about much more than fathers’ rights. And like many of its members, the movement has a dark side.

The “fathers’ rights” narrative goes something like this: Family courts, cowed by decades of feminist activism, are biased against anyone with a Y chromosome. A few brave men, undaunted by the forces of feminist oppression, are fighting for their rights as fathers—and for the rights of all male-kind.

David River, a divorce mediator and co-facilitator of the Santa Fe Coordinated Community Response Council, an umbrella group for efforts against domestic violence, says the view has some merit. There are men with legitimate grievances, he says—particularly those who wind up in the system following a false accusation, or are punished inappropriately based on outdated laws that fail to consider the context of any given case.

“But then,” River says, the fathers’ rights groups “tend to minimize everything, and fail to see how many women get killed in domestic violence situations. They refuse to give [domestic violence] any legitimacy.”

Most child custody cases, like most lawsuits, settle out of court. Those that don’t can get nasty. Soon-to-be-published research shows that approximately 90 percent of contested cases involve domestic violence or abuse. In these cases, the child becomes a tool through which the abuser, usually the father, continues to exert control over his ex.

How many women get killed? According to the latest Department of Justice figures, 1,640 women were killed by “intimate partners” nationwide in 2007. That’s compared to 700 men. In Santa Fe, 2009 brought a terrible wave of violence against women, including the murder of a pregnant 17-year-old by her angry boyfriend, police say.

Within fathers’ rights circles, such stories are little more than spin by a “party line” feminist press. That charge was made against SFR by one local man, Kenneth Kast, who founded a shelter for men like himself, who were made temporarily homeless and jobless by restraining orders.

To date, Kast’s shelter has served no clients, he says. Starting it was “more of a political statement,” he tells SFR.

“The party line is the woman can say and do anything. If the man reacts physically, he needs to be punished. And she does not need to understand that she played a role in that,” Kast, a retired licensed social worker, says.

Like many in the movement, Kast has been the subject of a restraining order; Kast says his ex-wife’s attorney admitted on appeal that he had not been violent.

While it’s true that every story has at least two sides, for DV deniers, the woman’s side is always a lie.

For the complete article, go to
http://www.sfreporter.com/stories/man_up/5234/all/

Children who write about being sexually abused

From left: David Mohler, Jared Mohler, Burrell Mohler Sr., Burrell Mohler Jr. and Roland Mohler face charges.

Two current stories show child victims of sexual abuse writing about it. In Missouri, the Mohlers' alleged child victims reportedly wrote about their pain, placed those pages in jars and buried them in the ground.

Follow this story and its updates at
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/11/missouri.child.sexual.abuse/index.html

In Louisiana, police have used technology to expose those who are downloading child pornography:


G. Andrew Boyd / The Times-Picayune
A real-time Google map showing where computers are located that are uploading and downloading sexually explicit images of children. State Police and the attorney general's office now have sophisticated software that can detect child pornography sharing and downloading.

Here is the opening to that story by Robert Travis Scott at the Times-Picayune:

Trapped in a nightmare of unrelenting sexual molestation and torment by her stepfather, a 12-year old central Louisiana girl tried to console herself by writing about her distress in a spiral-notebook diary.

"If you are reading this help me I really need your help," she wrote last year in a desperate three-page entry. "I am really scared with fear in my body. ... I try to pray about it but it never goes away."

The girl's ordeal finally ended when State Police, using new computer software, discovered the stepfather's criminal practice of trading sexually explicit images of children through the Internet. After officers arrested the stepfather in connection with the material found on his computer, they found the girl and her notebook, leading to additional charges and a conviction for child molestation.

The case is one of an increasing number of arrests in Louisiana and nationwide resulting from breakthroughs in software that can monitor the digital-age trafficking of images depicting child sexual exploitation and rape.

Although the story demonstrates the software's great potential and the very real possibility of rescuing abuse victims, the frustrating truth is that the technology finds many more criminal targets than law enforcement officials can afford to arrest and prosecute.

"We have the key, but we are barely using it," said Heather Steele, president of the Innocent Justice Foundation, a nonprofit group fighting child pornography.

Read the whole story at
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2009/11/post_72.html

Writing Books and Book Reviews

You can write truth to power by writing books (and book reviews):


Book review published in the Providence Journal, Sunday, October 25, 2009
http://www.projo.com/books/content/BOOK-SCARED-SILENT_10-25-09_C3FTVKM_v9.1059466.html

The Beltway Sniper's violent past

by Anne Grant
Special to The Journal

In 2002 the nation watched in horror as the D.C. Beltway Sniper murdered random victims. He turned out to be a veteran of the Gulf War engaged in a custody battle. Encouraged by a Tacoma group called Devoted Dads, who reunited fathers and children with federal funds, John Muhammad pursued his ex-wife across the country. He had already promised to kill her: Like a tightening noose, his rampage led to her doorstep.

A modest, thoughtful woman, Mildred Muhammad decided to tell her story to help those trapped by terrorists in their own homes. The back-story reads like many intractable custody cases that are wrongly portrayed in the courts as “high-conflict,” as if both parents are selfishly squabbling and equally guilty. But one practices terror while the other tries desperately to protect their children.

From the start of their romance, John lied. Married to another, the father of two by different women, he was charming, like many narcissistic abusers. Raised in a violent household, he resisted talking about the torment he had suffered as a child. He emerged from that trauma as a man determined to control others by seduction or force.

When life-changing videos on racism led the couple into the Nation of Islam, they assumed the name Muhammad. Mildred hoped this would transform John, especially after he went to the Million Man March in 1995 and took Minister Louis Farrakhan’s pledge to practice non-violence and not abuse his wife or children.

His conversion did not last. John told Mildred she was “mind over matter” to him, explaining: “I don’t mind, because you don’t matter.”

Two years before he terrorized the Beltway, John abducted their three children. Mildred tried to warn Tacoma police that he was dangerous, but police minimized the kidnapping, arguing that he was the children’s father. They never submitted his name to the National Crime Information Center or listed the children’s names as missing. If officers had done those things as they promised, they might have averted the children’s 18-month ordeal and the D.C. killings.

Mildred Muhammad tells how John waged psychological warfare without leaving visible wounds: “To keep the peace, I began doing what he wanted the way he wanted. I found myself changing to accommodate him.”

More than a memoir, this revealing book shows Muhammad’s wisdom in helping her children cope. She includes a safety plan and resources for victims of domestic violence.

Anne Grant has written about domestic violence and custody cases in The Providence Journal and elsewhere, including littlehostages.blogspot.com and a forthcoming text from Civics Research Institute (parentingproject@cox.net).

Petition to Put Polanski in Prison

Stop Family Violence has published a petition and a list of blogs on Roman Polanski's crime and the celebrity rush to his defense. You can sign the petition here:

http://www.stopfamilyviolence.org/action/act-now/petition-send-polanski-to-prison