Everybody in! Everybody out!

Posted by Dr. Amrit Chadwallah

The Dumpster has been so quiet recently. I went to find Tutor, fearing the worst, but he seemed remarkably cheerful, sitting on a sack of garbage, and talking to himself, gesticulating as if making a speech:

For years we have talked about Wealth Bondage and the many ways we are subordinated to it. Yet, in the last year or two, one by one we have found ways to get engaged in real world projects for change, hopeless or not. Whether it has to do with giving, or promoting givers, legacy planning, or working with organizers or activists, or going into medicine, or exploring wirearchy, or writing letters to public figures, or messing with technology to support civic spaces, we are reluctantly sometimes and often against our better judgment linking with others whose efforts in aggregate may threaten the world we have and encourage the world we want. The Dumpster began as a hangout for the marginal grumpy gifted. It was a shame and a disgrace, affirmed proudly as primitive Christians wore the cross as a way of embracing their own criminalized status. If the Dumpster is now emptier than it was, it is because the people in it have better things to do than hang out and complain. We are no longer fascinated with the Sideshow run by the media and the think tanks. We are less and less interested in who wins the next election, because we have seen that Candidia wins either way. Attention is an alternative curency and we would rather invest ours elsewhere. Carnival is coming and we are practicing jumping in and out of the Dumpster as Clowns jump in and out of their little car in the Circus. Where we are going our  antics will not be considered funny at first, so accustomed are the multitude to another kind of farce, but that is the reason we had better keep it light.  Nothing is sadder than a Clown who breaks role under pressure. When the crowd sees the point of the jests, Candidia, our Ringmaster, may run for the exit. That too is part of the show.

Well, "through the glass darkly." Tutor is certainly opaque, isn't he? Still, it will be fun to watch from a safe distance as he collides with the powers that be.

Comments

[JJ Commoner]

I've been swimming a lot lately.

"Everybody Out" either means lightning may be about to strike, or that there's a *doody* floating in the pool, usually having been left by an incontinent toddler or elder.

Sorta like when you see through WB .. either lightning has struck you, or you realized that doodies are floating by.

Being able to get in and get out, when YOU decide, seems like it might be some sort of next step towards TWWW.

[Mike Edwards]

I don't recall whether I've mentioned this site here or not, but http://www.communityeconomies.org/ offers some genuinely hopeful "real world projects for change." And for Dr. Chadwallah, a carefully theorized scholarly treatment of such projects can be found in J. K. Gibson-Graham's 2006 A Postcapitalist Politics. Excellent, compelling stuff.

[Tutor]

Tnanks, Mike, blogged the link as a Resource at Gifthub.

[Cackety Dishwitz]

Weak shit. I prefer the old version of WB, where AF was on top of the scrum, gouging peoples' eyes and grinding his cleats into the meat of the arrogant. Did this ever happen, or am I just nostalgic??

[Tutor]

I understand. The difference is partly audience. We are now being read by more mainstream people for whom even a little Wealth Bondage is a big shock to the system. Or maybe hope is setting in, displacing indignation. I am pretty tired of noting abuses we do nothing to correct, or counteract. Attention is currency and we are maybe spending it on the wrong things when we link and post to the lastest outrage perpetrated by the "big people." We have the weaponry, from mild to cruel, but satire & such only matter when the victim reads what you write. The World We Want, GH and with them WB are not just marginal anymore. They are becoming gathering places or mixers for people from a variety of places, including some "prestigious" ones. My concern is that the comments will go flat and I will be left making Carnival all by myself.

Well, anyway, your point is well taken, Mr. Dishwitz. "Weak shit," ok. You may be right.

[Cackety Dishwitz]

Hmm, WB, GH, TWWW. If all three were drowning, and, as their parent, you knew you could save only one, which would it be?

[Cackety Dishwitz]

Or, if any one were drowning, and attempting his rescue could put the other two at risk, would you save him?

[Cackety Dishwitz]

Or... What the fuck. You said it best:

I am pretty tired of noting abuses we do nothing to correct, or counteract. Attention is currency and we are maybe spending it on the wrong things when we link and post to the lastest outrage perpetrated by the "big people." We have the weaponry, from mild to cruel, but satire & such only matter when the victim reads what you write.

[dionysus_sez]

Certainly a little less revelry wouldn't hurt.

[Kaiser Soze]

I prefer my solution.

[Tutor]

Well, you are asking the wrong question. The question is, "If you could have either your job in Wealth Bondage as Dungeon Master to the Stars, and a comfy Dumpster to live in, or you could have any of your blogs, would you finally shut up?"

You won't really get the issue until you recognize that WB riffs with url are about to be published in a book, and probably talked about in a magazine for influential people. I notice you are using an alias. Fat lot of good sock puppets will do me when WB shows up on the front page of a newspaper read by my Chairman, Candidia Cruikshanks herself. She is going to think I am the Author Function, or that I put the AF up to it.

You may not get this, or appreciate it or agree with it, but we are getting WB into shape for a highly civilized war of more than just words. Certain words, like "you are fired," have the effect of a blow.

Played right WB may become "hip and cool," among wealthy and powerful people, or so well known as to be beyond easy criticism, but obscurity and aliases are not much of an option when the sites are intertwined and several are making it into the mainstream media and into a book that may be rather heavily promoted with the AF quotiing me again and again.

Think that through, and think how your own aliases stand up and why you use them, and what difference being unmasked would make in your personal and professional life.

So, too late to go back, we go forward, all three sites, with the gun carriages rocked back, the canons loaded, under full sail towards God knows what. If you guys want to bail out, before the other sails hove into view, and the battle starts, be my guest. But send flowers, ok? Strew my ashes in the nearest dumpster and say, "He didn't win, or expect to win, but then he didn't back down either, and his last words were a joke, not too funny, but a joke."

"Life is a jest and all things show it./ I thought so once and now I know it." John Gay's epitaph, written by himself it seems. Bad poetry, great joke.

[Cackety Dishwitz]

Well, you are asking the wrong question.

Yes, certainly. God bless me for asking them at all.

If you had any *real* friends in this freaking dump, they'd throw you an honest roast. Here, I'll start, in lieu of flowers:

The Tutor's dead. Long live the Tutor.

And a bonus:

Some say HT wears a golden vest as a tribute to Liberace. Not true.

Pardon me, now. I've a date to throw myself on my rubber sword.

[Tutor]

Liberace? I am glad someone finally noticed. My vest is a tribute. No need to for the rubber sword. The real Happy Tutor died in the late Middle Ages, when Erasmus did. There is not much that the forces of National Wealth Bondage Security can to him now. They can get me, maybe, but my true confession is that I am just a Happy Tutor Impersonator; the real guy lived and died many times and will never truly die for he is immortal, a work of art in Neoclassical Tradition.

[Cackety Dishwitz]

One last one, then I disappear into comment hell:

HT gave me some great advice: 'Write like you mean it.'

Right. Like you mean it.

[Cackety Dishwitz]

So, last night I got to thinkin... NewWB's not so bad, kinda like a trojan horse -- in reverse! (That's right, pony boys, sing it with me: A - big - fat - horse's - ass!)

[Rachel Tension]

Played right WB may become "hip and cool," among wealthy and powerful people

Shall I wear the grey spats or the white spats when I pass out on the canapes?

[flipper]

Mmmmm...  business deal.

The Happy Tutor has done less for me than for any of you. If you don't believe it, just ask him.

[flipper]

Believe me, this puts a lot of pressure on him. Some day he may burst with good will.

[a.mole]

Good evening, ladies and germs, here's my contribution, not really a joke, but what's the dif?

[ahfukit]

They say WB's suffering from loop-us. That's where a blog attacks itself by splitting into public and private conversations.

[Tutor]

Rachel, I am afraid that in the NewWB and Related Properties, you will be given the microphone and asked to address questions from our guests, including the hired help.
http://tinyurl.com/ko7mx

[Rachel Tension]

Microphone? Oh gawd, I hate karaoke, but OK, this is Doll Parts from Hole:

I am doll parts
Bad skin, doll heart
It stands for knife
For the rest of my life
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, but I do, too
I want to be the girl with the most cake
He only loves those things because he loves to see them break
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache
Someday you will ache like I ache

[Tutor]

Ahfukit, Loop-us? Nice phrase. Actually, WB, GH, and the World We Want blog are all public and form one effort, though the audiences are maybe different, as are the "modalities." There are indeed private conversations and those remain private, of course. Confidentiality is important in Wealth Bondage. That is why many here, including you, use a mask. That is why we often use "types" or characters rather than real names, and often use broad caricatures rather than quotations from public or private life. Yet, the gist is all public here, though told in parable. It has taken a long time for people to see that, and I feel bad that I have had to insult your intelligence by being so overt, but there it is. "What happens in wealth bondage stays in wealth bondage." What? You think we are talking about Las Vegas?

[ahfukit]

But sometimes, what you get at the Bunny Ranch, follows you home.

(Insulting my intelligence won't create a lot of sparks. It's a pretty soggy flint. ;-)

[flipper]

Gotta love ol' Rache, she's game, in Hole or part.

[Tutor]

Don't ask, don't tell. WB is a zone of discretion. Everything here is top secret.

[Horslink]

Mmmmm. Do I smell roast??

[Dickor Trevinson]

It's a wonder you smell anything with your nose up Candy's...   Hel-lo Ms. Candidia! So nice to see you, Ma'am! Yes, indeed Ma'am, right away quick!

[Tutor]

Your forced smiles please Candidia to no end. If you found it easy to be so obsequious she would not enjoy it half as much.

[flipper]

(shhhhh.  dolphin purge in progress. &nbspbreath through your mouth.)

[[working]]

[a.mole]

To what porpoise?

[flipper]

Yes, I understand, to what porpoise. To which I can only reply in the native tongue of my people:   Hakak.*

* (Like aloha or ciao, 'hello' and/or 'goodbye'. In this case, also, in the aloha spirit:  'For the halibut.')