Better than political action, and much less dangerous: For progressives with a new age bent, "I Am Blessing Water." Elsewhere in the Homeland, there is a man going 'round taking names.
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Better than political action, and much less dangerous: For progressives with a new age bent, "I Am Blessing Water." Elsewhere in the Homeland, there is a man going 'round taking names.
Posted at 09:50 AM in Activism | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
David Hogsberg of the Capital Research Center on Corporate Social Responsibility in The Amercian Spectator: "The battle against the corporate social responsibility movement won't be won easily." See who funds CRC at Mediatransparency. I asked Candidia for her view and she said, "CRC delivers bottom line results. I would strongly recommend them to any funder looking for a cash on cash return. Social responsibility, sweetie, is for losers. Stick it to the environmentalists. Let their babies eat poison and die!" That is a bit harsh, but it's a Free Market; to each her own. Besides, who am I criticize? Candidia pays my bills too.
Posted at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Where are they, all the giving blogs? was once the question. Now we have a more interesting question: Why do those who start blogs on philanthropy either say next to nothing (as if posts were reviewed by an immediate superior or run by an internal censor) or fall silent? "What should we talk about?" asks Lucy Berholz, and then falls silent. Philanthropybeat "is an online journal that covers the institutional philanthropy and private foundations," but has no posts as far as I can tell.
I wish Lenore Ealy could get a team of conservative thinkers, like Bill Schambra and Amy Kass to blog with her. At a recent conference, Amy told me, about a particular point, "You are completely wrong." And she was right. How can we get that conversational spirit, of heated disgreement, with respect for truth, going in our staid field as we await the talking points from Headquarters? I mean, if you can't blog in your own name without permission get a pseud and speak in parables. Over at Wealth Bondage they always have an opening for a well-bred Professional. If you want to make a Fool of yourself with impunity, I am sure Candidia can put you to work blogging for hire as a public service. You would think that blogs being "voluntary action in a public space" would be a natural fit with those interested in promoting civil society and citizen engagement. Instead, mostly silence. I should probably take the hint myself and write about, say, spaniels.
Posted at 10:55 PM in Philanthropy Folks | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Fascinating article on creating and keeping financial wealth by Paul Graham, an entrepreneur. Does anyone know of a comparable work on creating and propagating social benefit? Let's say a crazy person were willing to live in poverty, work miracles, forgo wordly power, and die a horrible death in order to maximize total social return? What would be his best move at he enters the treacherous public square? "Without a parable spake he not unto them; and when they were alone he expounded all things to his disciples."
Posted at 01:23 PM in Activism | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
They crack down. We keep an eye on them on behalf of Ordered Liberty.
Posted at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
A blogger for the cause will learn from experience the highs, and unfortunate lows, that go along with activist blogging. Not every day will be pleasant, as opposition to the viewpoint will be frequent and not afraid to be heard. Blogging for change will result in negative feedback. That is part and parcel with the blogging genre....
(Via Liisa at Civiblog)
I am sure my day will come. So far, everyone agrees with everything I say.
Posted at 02:08 PM in Activism | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thanks, Robert, for the boost,
Interesting site and links to anti-anti-corporate activists--I've never seen that before. (Usually it is corporate support versus anti-corporate support. Guess I'm proving my moderate liberal position.) Gifthub includes links to other satrical sites and one site called Activistcash.com that attacks efforts to influence policy directed at social change. This all gives a very different way to think about liberalism in modern post-industrial capitalism. Here is a philanthropy blog to check out again: gifthub.org/.
How can we open a conversation about the role of money in our society that includes philanthropy as a topic without falling into the mindless good manners of those who, at bottom, are afraid to speak out against the hand that feeds them? That is so unhealthy. Whatever can be said about the specific conclusions, which are always debatable, can anyone question the poverty of our on line conversations about money and about philanthropy in particular? Those who know the most are most guarded and polite in their self-expression. Those who speak for the poor in the presence of the rich most often truckle. In a free society, whose press is hardly free, a corporate, advertising supported press, we as blogging citizens have an obligation to press against the limits of what can be said inside a corporate or nonprofit firewall without giving offense to those Ultra-High-Net-Worth-Individuals who are thick as thieves. We do the rich poor service if we fawn and flatter. No wonder psychological counseling for the rich and their families is a booming business.
There is an old saying: "Don't break the rules unless you understand them." I meet that test. I can teach the accepted manners for dealing with money to anyone servile or opportunistic or merely timid enough who wants to learn them. "The proper uses of wealth" is a fine old sermon topic. It is a poor physician who flatters the sick person rather than healing her. How do we heal the greatest diseases of all - vanity, vain-glory, spiritual pride, greed, a cold heart, the whole litany of sins that beset the successful and their lackeys? Satire in the Roman manner is the proven cure. (A wooden trestle, a sharp knife, and salt in the wound.)
Thank you, Robert, for getting at what we are trying to accomplish. We are not here to encourage, or praise, much less to hurt the wealthy sinners and their enablers, but to heal. It is a noble trade conducted pro bono publico, since only a fool, like the Happy Tutor, would offer it and no one but a wise man would pay for it (and he would not need it.)
Posted at 12:47 PM in About Gifthub | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
By Obliquity
A friend, an inheritor, sent me a link to Dr. Jack Grubman, as a possible resource. He is one of a growing cadre of psychologists specializing in the mental and emotional ills to which wealth is prone.
These psychological areas are important for the financial professional to understand and know how to manage. Dr. Grubman coaches financial advisers about psychological aspects of wealth management along with consultation about the impaired client. He teaches in the Masters Program in Financial Planning at the McCallum Graduate School of Business at Bentley College (Massachusetts). His course, Psychology in Financial Planning, covers the psychology of money, basic behavioral finance, and client relationship skills.
"Well and good," said the Happy Tutor, Dungeon Master to the Stars, when I mentioned Dr Grubman to him. "A lot of wealthy people are deranged, but it is a moral disease best cured the old fashioned way, with a scourge, scalpal or pillory." That is Tutor for you, always trying to drum up business for what he calls "Our Noble Trade." We all have to make a living somehow and there are enough morally impaired rich people to go around. That is what I like about working in philanthropy. You get to help rich lunatics pass on their family values and remake the world in their own image. Why cure them when you can serve them?
The Literal for Those Readers Who Need It
Actually, working with persons of wealth and their families as human beings with all the ills to which humans are heir is important work. Getting a pyschologist on the team is often an important step in helping a person or a family build and implement and communicate a worthwhile plan for the family's personal or dynastic ambitions. What goes unspoken in the financial industry, allied disciplines, and indeed our culture, and the point this post tries to make through obliquity, is that hubris, for example, is not only a mental illness, it is a moral fault, one that can bring a polity down. Pride, vanity, intolerance, megalomania, narcissism - are these diseases? Or moral deformties? We need to be able to do more than palliate and treat the symptons of a system that is failing us because of its over-estimation of the importance of money, and we need to find in ourselves and root out, the habits of mindless courtesy and deference to those who make this world go in its current direction because, however sick they may be, they have the money, the power, the entourage and the following to make their views prevail. (I hate to be so literal, but not all readers can read at the AP English level, and probably, since I have mentioned a real psychologist , I owe it to him to be explicit. Heal the sick, Doctor, but as a citizen consider with The Happy Tutor what we must do with the wealty reprobates if we are to purge and heal the Body Politic in which they play such an important role!)
Posted at 04:16 PM in Tooterisms | Permalink | Comments (13) | TrackBack (0)
The Happy Tutor and I were recently at a progressive funders conference trolling for prospects, he for his business, I for mine. We were talking on the plane back to Dallas about Christmas, Christians, and the Marketplace - remind me not to bring those subjects up with him, particularly in a plane packed with Evangelicals. He, in a loud voice, waving his third glass of Thunderbird, went off on his usual toot about market idolatry,
God created this world and entrusted it to Adam and Eve. Our first parents fell through their own spiritual pride, putting all Creation at risk. Now, in this season in which we remember the life and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, let us embrace his example and live on less, disdaining riches and greed. The Rapture, some say, is coming, when the seas run like sewers with the dead. Soon the prideful Christians will be gone, (they say it is to Heaven). Then when we have been Delivered from these Prophets of the Marketplace, who preach the Anti-Gospel of Greed, it will be up to us to fix what they have broken.
Let us pray for the salvation of all men and women, whether they call themselves Christian or not, and the world entrusted to us. Each of us can slay or bind Satan within us, to some degree, one Brand Name at a time. What this country needs is not a Bible-Believing President, but an exorcist.
I think Tutor, as befits a pro bono Dungeon Master to the Stars, goes way too far in flagellating his fellow citizdens in the spirit of the early Christian ascetics. While I respect his right to worship as he pleases, I apologize to all he offended. I don't think you will see him on American Airlines again any time soon, according the Air Marshall who threw us off in Tuscon. Good manners are the essence of civil society, which is why we call it "civil," after all. Please do not judge me by him. I basically feel that each of us should do whatever we want as long as we don't make any trouble for our superiors and don't use bad language.
Still, as we approach the holidays we might put a little green back in Christmas. The Center for The New American Dream "isn’t about deprivation. It’s about getting more of what really matters—more time, more nature, more fairness, and more fun." Rather than going nuts like Tutor, or resorting to prayer, we might at least cut back a little. The Center has many good ideas on how to do that, and they are quite bland.
Posted at 12:00 PM in Rapture Ready Resources | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
From a friend of progressive giving, Elizabeth Share: Why not give more all year round?
Posted at 11:59 PM in Philanthropy Folks | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
To Whom it May Concern
Gifthub is an immortal work of art in theMenippean Tradition,written in a Padded Cell (he calls it a Dumpster for obvious reasons) in a state of shock by Phil Cubeta, Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families, under an alias, or alter ego, The Happy Tutor, Dungeon Master to the Stars in Wealth Bondage...... More....
Email Phil Cubeta, Morals Tutor to America's Wealthiest Families.
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