News from the Network, Vol. 1, No. 14

There have been some very positive happenings this week within the Global Justice Movement. This is a much-needed counter to the increasingly gloomy economic and political news that seems to flood in continuously.

• On Saturday, November 22, 2008 Norman Kurland gave a short speech at the Washington, DC, "End the Fed" rally. While the Washington event seems to have had the worst weather of any of the 39 rallies, it was also reportedly the best attended, with approximately 200-300 people showing up in bitterly cold temperatures. Norm's speech, unfortunately, had to be somewhat shortened due to rapidly falling temperatures as the sun went down, but he was still able to deliver a message that addressed many of the important points of the Just Third Way. The focus of the Just Third Way is not the destruction of institutions, but their reform to make them more consistent with the principles of the natural law. Thus, by "End the Fed," we mean bringing an end to the Federal Reserve as it now operates, and restoring it to its original purpose of providing liquidity to the private sector, not financing government deficits. A video clip can be seen here.

• On Monday, we got a telephone call from a writer for The Wanderer, a national Catholic newspaper. The October 23, 2008 issue of the paper carried some remarks about CESJ, the Central Bureau of the Catholic Central Union of America, distributism, and georgism, as well as the interfaith composition of CESJ and the First Social Justice Collaborative in August that could have been interpreted negatively. It took us time to prepare a response, but apparently within hours of receiving CESJ's letter and package of materials, the Wanderer started to take steps to correct the information once they had our side of the story. The Wanderer's quick and decisive action in this matter should transform a potentially embarrassing incident into an opportunity to help spread the effort to restore the natural law as the basis for a sound economy and a just social order.

• The writer from the Wanderer also requested a review copy of our latest book, In Defense of Human Dignity. The writer expects to get it reviewed fairly quickly. If anyone who has access into an established newspaper or journal would like a review copy, please let us know. We can provide a "two volume" e-text, or (if you don't mind waiting for regular mail, especially at this time of year), we can send a regular bound copy. If you want to get a copy even faster, it can be ordered from Amazon and Barnes and Noble. In Defense of Human Dignity is currently ranked 58 on Amazon's list of 100 most popular books on the natural law. Since Heinrich Rommen's The Natural Law and Dr. Charles Rice's 50 Questions on the Natural Law are 9 and 8, respectively, it's in good company.

• Walter Fauntroy is continuing to make great efforts to get Norm to the powers-that-be. It's difficult to tell sometimes in Washington just how successful this seed planting will be, but we hope to find out soon. Walter's efforts can be used as a model for others who want to see real changes introduced into the system, and illustrate the importance of Number 17 on the CESJ Code of Ethics: "There are three keys to gaining acceptance of revolutionary ideas: persistence, persistence, and persistence."

• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 31 different countries and 40 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months.

As usual, there are a great many other news items that we haven't heard about because you haven't submitted them. If you're tired of reading about what we're doing, let's hear from you. If you have a SHORT item about how you are advancing the Just Third Way, send us a note about it at mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org.

Donations to CESJ support our Capital Homesteading projects and Just Third Way initiatives, and are tax deductible in the United States under IRC § 501(c)(3).