Gift Hub

Funder Collaboratives for Advocacy

Fine article on funder collaboratives by Cynthia Gibson and Jen Bokoff. By "funders" are meant established foundations, or "grantmakers." With so many tens of millions seething, who is organizing citizens in  collabortives to fund "human flourishing" under the noses of the properly constituted authorities? Even though my view of flourishing is not in line with my boss's, Mistress Candidia, she who rules us all in Wealth Bondage, I did ask her for a capacity building grant. It went better than I expected. "Gawd, you crack me up," she said. "I knew there  was a reason I keep you around. You are a comedian. I like that. Maybe you could also learn to sing and tap dance. Funding the capacity of losers to flourish. What a fucking hoot!" Well, I had feared she would have me flogged, so comparatively speaking it's Eudaimonia to me. 

Tending our Garden (Raising Responsible Dynasts above the Law)

Audrey, our future Queen, heir to all that can be owned (and what can't be owned? Can you think of anything?) is sitting cross-legged bouncing a red rubber ball against the wall of her room in the Castle by the Sea, so Rex can get some exercise. The walls, hundreds of years old, are cut volcanic stone, and the physics of the bounce is perfect, with just enough unevenness in the stone to make the rebound unpredictable, and more fun for Rex, the scruffy Rescue Dog. He is leaping to see if he can catch the ball before it hits the ground. When he does, he gets patted. "Good boy, Rex!" Tutor is on her bed, stretched out, feet in flip-flops, ankles crossed, reading what Audrey would call "a hard book." The book is grubby from having been read so often.

"Whatcha reading, Tutor?"

He is reading The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, by Martha Nussbaum.  Audrey is a grown up in the body of a nine year old. She likes hard books, as long as she does not have to read them. She likes being told what hard books say, so she can take it in and understand why grown-ups are so messed up. She heads for the bed, as if it were to be a bedtime story, and says, "So, what's it about, Tutor?"

Now, those of you with Degrees in Instructional Design, or maybe who are parents yourselves, know that this is what a Teacher calls a "Teachable moment," or "Learning Readiness." It is a good time to knock out a few "Learning Objectives" and "Competencies." As a Knave, Rogue, Dupe, or Fool yourself, that is to say a good consumer and citizen, what would you want the Heir to the Earth, she who will by law be above the law, who will rule you and your children, and her heirs your children's children, to know, feel, or be able to do? Good question, right? And here it all comes down to this disreputable, broken, Tutor in Priest pants, making what? $12 a day plus room and board and a safe place to hide from the FBI, NSA, NY Police, his former employer, an outstanding warrant for vagrancy, and several irate husbands. 

While well meaning Field Leaders in the Wealth Bondage Planning Business want to be a Trusted Advisor, or Consigliere, to the world's wealthiest families, and everyone knows that it is not about the numbers anymore, or the tax and tools, it is about Family Systems, and Family Dynamics, and preparing the heir for the money rather than just preparing the money for the heir, and while everyone wants to present themselves as a Mentor, and Paragon, and Role Model for the Heirs, and some quote Vergil to that effect, implying that they were sent by a goddess, Athena, goddess of wisdom, to impart priceless wisdom at $10,000  a day plus tax, and expenses, no one has the patience or the low self esteem, or the limited career options, to serve as a glorified babysitter for a stubborn kid in her formative years, as she bounces a red ball annoyingly against the wall of the Castle, while you are trying to read a hard book. So, it falls to Tutor, who lives for this, and has since Seneca suicided himself under Nero, for speaking truth out of turn, and Tutor took over as the Mentor to emperor's kids.

Dynasties, family enterprises (inclusive sometimes of entire countries), entire civilizations, religions, even languages, come and go, but always there are the Powers that Be, and always there are the little kids growing up to one day run the world. Tutor lives for the pleasure of playing with their heads, to help them be just and fair and kind and ruthless as we know our rulers must be, if they are to be above the law, by law, and do what is right not only for themselves, but for all of us, and all living things, too. Facts, laws, don't hold Power back. Power can decree Fact and double dare you to object. Law says what lawyers say it says, and judges, and they can be cultivated as Assets to those with the Wealth to do it. Happens all the time, and always has. So it comes back down to what the Owner/Leader wants and decides. That is why we have a "Decider" at the top. So things get done.

"Well, kid, it is about flowers and a garden."

"OK, what about flowers and a garden, Tutor?"

"Well, kid, it says that you are, we all are, like flowers in a garden."

"Ok, so?" She is really asking, her attention span is short, yes, but intense. She is focused. But easily bored, if truth is not forthcoming.

"You mind, heart, soul, how you are is a garden with a big wall around it, that Momma built, but the wind blows over the wall and in come seeds of weeds, and they grow in the garden, and they choke out the flowers inside."

"So, we have to weed it, right?" Smart, kid. She is always one step ahead. Catches the point, like Rex leaping for the red ball.

"Yes, we weed our gardens, and spade, and harrow, and tie the up delicate rose tendrils."

"Like when you tell me not to pick my nose and eat it?"

"Exactly! But you do anyway, right?"

"Because you told me not to."

Exactly!"

"Is that a weed?"

Tutor, puts the book down, and whispers in her ear, "Eating snot on purpose is a flower, kid. Keep it up!"

Audrey cuddles closer. She and Tutor are like two travelers on the bridge of time. She is a child who acts like a grownup, passing the grownup, traveling into a second childhood. They are at the balance point, where either has much to teach the other, true things, that stay true, even when the Supreme Courts agrees unanimously they are false, and the Pope concurs, and the Leader denounces the truth as fake. Even when fake stuff is against the law, and you pay for it with your life; fake includes art, which includes tragedy, and stays true.

"So, if we did pull out the weeds, we would have more flowers, right? Like my ballet? And Akido? I would get better and better?" Audrey leaps to the floor and begins her Akido kicks and chops.

"Exactly, kid. But the book is a true book and says more." Curious, Audrey climbs back on the bed.

"What?"

"It makes me so sad, I don't want to tell you. No one will ever tell us, except the artists. No one wants it to be true, and no one will say it is true anymore. We are not able to accept the truth, and so it takes us by surprise, and we are ashamed."

"What truth?"

"You may spend your whole life weeding the garden, tending the flowers, watering, pruning, and guess what?"

"Come on, tell me!"

"A worm will come in the night, or a storm will come, or drought, or hail, or a pestilence, and no matter what you have done the flowers will die."

"Inside me?" Audrey is pointing to her heart.

"Inside you, yes, inside you. You will become like a Real Grownup...."

"I love you Tutor." She puts arms around his neck and kisses his grizzled cheek.

"I love you, too, kid. You have to promise me you will never ever grow up. You will always be a kid, ok?"

"But I have to grow up, Tutor, I can't help it!" Audrey is waving her arms over her head.

"Well, maybe, but look at me. Did I ever grow up?"

Obviously not, but the moment has passed, and Audrey has vaulted onto the floor, and is now on all fours, pretending she is a dog, and barking to Rex to see if she knows dog language well enough to make him roll over. But he just sniffs her nose, which is a start.

As a free born citizen myself, I only wish that Tutor had gotten to World Leaders young enough to change them for the better. You talk about weeds! And when they get so big, who has the courage to pull them out by the roots? Not I. God bless Tutor and our once and Future Queen.

 

The World Turned Upside Down within the Very Castle Itself

Momma, also known as Big Big Momma, though she is as slender and lithe as an Olympic fencer, but big in the eyes of the traders she daily defeats on course to own and rule the world before she hits 35, and big in the eyes of Audrey, who is still waist high, and big as a mother is big forever in the heart of the one she raises, is hovering outside Audrey's door. "It is rather quiet in there," she says to herself. "Too quiet; what are those two up to now?" Those two meaning Audrey and her Tutor.

When Momma opens the door, she sees two half creatures, two bodies cut off at the waist, butt-side up, and the two of them with their heads between their legs, faces red, hands clasping their own ankles, galumphing about the room.

"What in the name of Heaven are you two doing?," asks Momma. "You are supposed to be doing your lessons," she adds. "I am," chirps Audrey; "Tutor is preparing the Heir, Momma. He is teaching me how to turn the world upside down so it is right side up again!" You as faithful reader must know that Tutor, following both Stoic and Christian Doctrine, teaches that the last shall be first, and the meek shall inherit, some sweet day, when the world is righted at last. "Momma, you are upside down! You are walking on the ceiling. Be careful, Momma, you might fall down!" "Well," says Momma, playing along, "You had better save me. Turn me right side up, please." Audrey and Tutor turn to face each other, heads inverted, like a crack drill team from another planet. "Ready!," shouts Audrey. "Steady!," replies Tutor. "Go!," exclaims Audrey. And both stand so fast the blood drains to their feet, and they stagger about like drunks, until Audrey clutches her mother's legs, and Tutor falls rump first, to the floor. "I saved you, Momma," murmurs Audrey, "You are right side up now!"

I mentioned this strange episode to my colleague in Wealth Bondage, Dr. Amrit Chadwallah, BA in Forensic Hermeneutics, University of Calcutta, and PhD, English Language and Literature, Yale, now Senior Adjunct in Charge of Hidden Meaning in Wealth Bondage, and he assured me that, though the incident may be real, it is also a fable, or parable, for God writes the Book of Nature in Types, for our instruction. So, I took the bait, and asked what the parable means. He said, "The World Turned Upside Down is a trope going back to Diogenes, he of the famous barrel, who once counseled Alexander the Great, to give it a rest, and not bother conquering the world, since happiness could be found by sitting down in the sun by Diogenes and his dog by the barrel or dumpster in which the sage lived. Later, towards the end of his days, Diogenes asked to be buried face down, so that when the world turned right side up, he would be facing in the right direction. That trope," Chadwallah continued for my edification and yours too, if your hunger for hidden meanings has kept you reading thus far, "was taken up in the Enlightenment, as a subject of poems and masquerade balls, all leading up to the American and French Revolutions. Speaking now," said Chadwallah, "as the Shop Steward for the Wealth Bondage Chapter of SIEU in our fight for $15 dollars an hour, I take this parable as a sign that Revolution will come, not from the shop floor only, from the least among us, but from inside the very Castle of Wealth Bondage itself, through the good auspices of The Happy Tutor, Dungeon Master to the Stars, who has come again, to save us all from ourselves, and to mentor our once and future Good Queen Audrey, who I take to be a Type of Astraea, Goddess of Justice, who will own, rule, and save us all....." For this kind of tripe, Dr. Chadwallah expects $15 an hour? But he is a good friend, and we all need a dream or delusion if we are to get through another day in Wealth Bondage, The Way It Is. Most of us just pretend we are free, insofar as we consume, or that we can get free if we do as told, think as told, and don't make trouble  for our clients, donors, immediate superiors, or the higher ups, to whose status we aspire, as if that would do us any good. At least Chadwallah has a plan: let Tutor fix it for us. We certainly can't do anything about it for ourselves.

"Change! Put up or Shut Up, Obama," say the Grassroots

Digby is asking whether Obama will govern his grassroots network, or whether it will govern him. "We the people" once enlisted under Obama's banner may not demoblize as he slides to the center and becomes an apologist for a mildly reformed version of the broken status quo. We see the same old tired Democratic Centrists taking leading roles, because, we are told, they are experienced. "Change!" the nice man said, in his best marketing voice, with sincere intonation. Now, we shall have change whether he and his cohort of DC insiders will lead us there or not. 

Wage Theft

A national crisis. Wage and hour workers stiffed or shorted by employers. Kim Bobo, founder of Interfaith Worker Justice, testifies before Congress.  Her new book on wage theft is here.

US Army versus Demonstrators?

Digby, Dispatches from Torture Nation, how the Army will deploy a unit on US soil, armed to quell dissent should there be any.  The laws against deploying the Army against US citizens were quietly modified. You may not have heard that, since it was not widely covered in the media at that time.

Votes Cast in the Street for Democracy when not on Offer Elsewhere

Amy Goodman:

In Denver, but particularly in St. Paul, dissent was crushed with a massive array of paramilitarized police, operating under the U.S. Secret Service, granted jurisdiction over the “National Special Security Events” that the conventions have been dubbed. Corporations pay millions to the host committees, earning exclusive access to lawmakers and candidates. The host committees, in turn, unleash police on the public, all but guaranteeing injuries, unlawful arrests and expensive civil litigation for years to come. More than just a campaign-finance loophole that must be closed, this is a national disgrace.

Amy's arrest here.

Change in the Wind

"Lord, I pray that you would bring Jews to know Jesus Christ. I pray that you would bring Muslims to know Jesus Christ. Finally, Lord, I pray that you would bring Christians to know Jesus Christ. Amen" - Arthur Burns, a Jew, at a Washington, DC Payer Breakfast among the politicians, cited by Gerald Britt of Dallas Social Ministries. 

Alternatives to Corporate Rule

There is an Alternative to Corporate Rule, by Mark Engler. What he describes may not be philanthropy, but it is certainly civil society.

In truth, a lack of viable ideas is hardly the problem for those who reject both corporate and imperial models of globalization. Whether they are part of boisterous national uprisings or quiet, persistent community efforts to fuel a truly democratic globalization -- a globalization from below -- members of grassroots networks are now engaged in a debate about the proper balance of vision, program, political strategy, and tactics needed to move forward.

Via.

Alternative Media Alternative Realities

Poor People's March at the RNC, with Fox News embedded with the Riot Police. Via.