As the global economic, social, and political situation
continues to worsen, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that nothing can be
done to halt the seemingly inevitable descent into chaos. Fortunately, that is not the case. The more unreasonable and nonsensical the
situation appears, the more apparent it becomes that the only real and
sustainable solution depends on a return to reason and common sense, and to
begin study and implementation of the three principles of economic justice.
It’s obviously not an easy task, but here’s some of what we’ve
been doing to try and kickstart the process:
• CESJ has made even more potentially valuable contacts
among people interested in the Unite America Party platform and the potential
of the Just Third Way to provide a new model of business within the framework
of existing law.
• CESJ’s new fellow from Belgium, Astrid U., is arriving tonight,
and will begin on Monday, July 21.
• Members of the CESJ core group will be meeting with Jim A.
from Massachusetts next week. Jim has
expressed great interest in the research work carried out by CESJ, as well as
the applications of the principles of economic and social justice in the
platform of the Unite America Party and the for-profit Equity Expansion
International, Inc.
• Deacon Joseph Gorini, founder, chairman, and CEO of
Evangelization Enterprises, Inc. (EEI), of which the “public face” is Light and Heat Ministries, Inc.,
and also Apostolic Action, Inc. (AAI), is also a board member of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy
(CCC). He recently introduced a
resolution to the CCC board to build a relationship between the CCC and
CESJ. Time was limited, so the issue was
tabled, but Deacon Gorini is preparing an information sheet on CESJ to go the
CCC to prepare them for more in-depth discussion of the proposal. He is also working on rescheduling a meeting
between CESJ and Father John Trigilio, president of the CCC.
• Deacon Gorini has also referred a potential candidate for
a Justice-Based S-Corp ESOP to Equity Expansion International, Inc. Contact information has been sent to the
candidate, along with a link to the EEI
website.
• Daniel Kurland, a schoolteacher in Fairfax County,
Virginia, who is a strong supporter of the Just Third Way, is seeking funding to purchase 5 Tablets
for his special needs students to use in class. As of this morning, the campaign has reached
22.333% of its $1,500 goal. Consider
making a contribution today.
• CESJ submitted a two-year, $750,000 grant proposal to a
foundation in the Midwest to fund the Justice University project. The initial reaction has been positive, and
members of the CESJ core group are scheduled to meet with a board member of the
foundation in mid-August. Outreach to
other foundations is also underway, and some responses have been received.
• CESJ is preparing a $75,000 “crowd funding” proposal to
finance the completion, editing, publication, and marketing of What Happened to Distributive Justice, a
study of the sea change that took place in both civil society (the State) and
religious society (organized religion, or the Church) in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries, and is now affecting domestic society (the
Family). The study has taken on aspects
of a detective story as research has traced the changes in understanding of
basic principles of justice, even reason itself, that have led to today’s need
to clarify the three principles of economic justice in order to develop a
solution to today’s increasingly serious economic, political, and social
problems. The campaign could be launched
as early as next week. Its success will
largely depend on CESJ members and friends spreading the word throughout the
world principally by means of their social media networks. The service CESJ is investigating has the
capacity to accept donations in U.S., Canadian, and Australian dollars, as well
as Euros and British pounds.
• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 46 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 United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and the Philippines.
The most popular postings this past week were “Distributism, Neo-Distributism,
and the Just Third Way, II: The Slavery of Past Savings,” “The Purpose of
Production,” “Pope Francis, Capitalism, and War, I: Can Capitalism Stop War?” “Distributism,
Neo-Distributism, and the Just Third Way, V: Neo-Distributism,” and “Thomas
Hobbes on Private Property.”
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#