News from the Network, Vol. 5, No. 11

This has, as usual, been a busy week. A great deal has been happening to get word out about how the Just Third Way as applied in Capital Homesteading has the potential to resolve the current economic — and political — crises that seem to be popping up with increasing frequency. To that end, here's what's been happening this week:

• Guy S. in Iowa has developed a video that many of our readers should find both entertaining and informative. Titled, "Promise of Participation: Own or Be Owned," the 20-minute show takes us on a brief journey stressing the need for modern society to rebuild a culture of ownership through Capital Homesteading at the earliest possible opportunity. There are a few rough spots, but you'll hardly notice them: http://youtu.be/fcsSokoVaxc.

• Monica W. came in last Friday and stayed the weekend with her husband Jim. A number of important issues were discussed, especially how to apply Just Third Way ideas in Ohio within the existing legal framework. Ohio is not only a center of employee ownership, but is also moving forward on many other fronts with a number of innovative initiatives, including the home foreclosure crisis. A number of people involved in that have indicated serious interest in the Homeowners Equity Corporation.

• Our series on "Welfare Blackmail" seems to have excited a little interest outside of our ordinary readership. One commentator remarked that it was overly pessimistic about the possibility of the American bishops, lay Catholics, and other people of faith coming together and adopting Capital Homesteading as a Pro-Life economic agenda to build a strong political and economic coalition to counter the Culture of Death. We'll see — there are a few positive indications that people may be starting to wake up. It's important that we start to open doors to prime movers to acquaint them with the possibilities inherent in the Just Third Way, and not take any of the usual equivocations for an answer.

• Norman Kurland and Joseph Recinos (back home for a while during an interlude from his travels) attended "The Atlantic: The Economy Summit" this past Wednesday in Washington, DC. There were two panel discussions, 1) "Diagnosing a Sick U.S. Economy: What Happened and What Is the Fix?" and 2) "No-Nonsense Prescriptions for Jumpstarting Real Economic Growth." Joe was able to get a Capital Homesteading brochure into the hands of nearly all the panel participants. After the lunch, during which Paul Volcker, past Chairman of the Federal Reserve was the keynote speaker, there were a number of "headline interviews" with some potential prime movers, nearly all of whom received brochures from Joe.

• Michael Greaney gave a presentation on Dodge v. Ford Motor Company (1919) before a Northern Virginia Community College Business Law class. Showing the derivation of the legal reasoning from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the Dred Scott case in 1857 and the Slaughterhouse Cases in 1873, Mike showed how the rapid loss of natural rights through redefinition has, in part, been responsible for the current economic malaise. The presentation may be turned into a blog series in the near future.

• As of this morning, we have had visitors from 57 different countries and 51 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from the United States, Canada, the UK, India, and the Philippines. People in Venezuela, Argentina, Australia, Ireland and the United States spent the most average time on the blog. The most popular postings this past week were "Thomas Hobbes on Private Property," "Aristotle on Private Property," "The Crimes of Rick Santorum," "Toward a False Equality," and "The Crimes of Mitt Romney."

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.

#30#