The disappointment over President Obama's State of the Union Address was almost palpable. While the response of domestic commentators was, from a Just Third Way perspective, somewhat muffled, foreign news commentators had an unvarnished and un-spun reaction: what Mr. Obama called for was "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." From our perspective, it will be an easier "sell" than the Republicans' "Don't tax the rich" gambit. Of course, something along the lines of Capital Homesteading would beat it all hollow, so here's what we've been doing to move things forward:
• Due to the press of business, we've not been debriefed on the Economic Justice Summit in Hartford last week, other than to say that things went well. We hope to have a full report by next week.
• Norman Kurland has been interviewed on Rick Tormala's Tuesday With Tormala show, and is stirring up a great deal of interest in the ideas of the Just Third Way, especially their conformity with the essential principles of Chesterton and Belloc's "distributism."
• Universal Values Media, Inc., one of the companies dedicated to Justice Based Management and to spreading the word about the Just Third Way, has started a new program providing e-books in Kindle, [] each of which explores in fictional form some aspect of the Just Third Way, usually expanded capital ownership. These are planned to be short "novellas" of approximately 25-30 words each, and are priced to sell at the token price of 99¢. The first three are out now, and are in the "humorous science fiction" subgenre. If you want some "lite" entertainment to take a break from the in-depth material on the CESJ website and this blog, give the e-books a try. We think you'll enjoy them — and tell your friends about them. We may not have the "pitch" down right, but we're refining it. The books themselves are fine.
• Norman Kurland had a meeting with Rob, a restaurateur in Washington, DC on Thursday. The meeting went well, and was intrigued by what he heard.
• Monica in Ohio has been working hard to get a handle on the complex monetary and financial theory of the Just Third Way, and is looking forward to applying the concepts, both in CESJ and for EEI.
• Chris O. and Michael Greaney represented CESJ at the pre-March for Life reception of the Catholic Radio Association hosted by the Columbia School of Law at the Catholic University of America. A number of brochures were distributed for Supporting Life, and a number of people seemed interested in the idea of a Pro-Life economic agenda as a way of moving things forward. A CESJ representative may be invited to participate in the Catholic Radio Association's annual "Radiothon" in April to talk about these ideas and the application of principles of social justice to the movement.
• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 54 different countries and 49 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, the UK, Canada, Australia, and the Philippines. People in Croatia, Australia, the United States, the UK and the Netherlands spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular postings this past week were "It's the Academics v. the Politicians . . . v. Economic Reality, Part III: Finance," "Ron Paul and Creating Money," "Raw Judicial Power, Part I: The Assault of Legal Positivism," "Thomas Hobbes on Private Property" and "Raw Judicial Power, Part IX: Scott v. Sandford."
Those are the happenings for this week, at least that we know about. If you have an accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we'll see that it gets into the next "issue." If you have a short (250-400 word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog — do not send them to us to post for you. All comments are moderated anyway, so we'll see it before it goes up.
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THE Global Justice Movement Website
This is the "Global Justice Movement" (dot org) we refer to in the title of this blog.
