Here
is the first part of the annual year-end news roundup, covering January through
June 2016. The second part, covering
July through December, will be posted Friday of next week:
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| Notre Dame? Where are the lakes? Where's the Golden Dome? |
• In the early part of the year, an associate had some very good meetings with a number of
Australian Members of Parliament. He also arranged for Norman G. Kurland, president of CESJ, to
have a conversation over the internet with a small group, and has reached out
to Notre Dame-Perth, which is affiliated with the University of Notre Dame in
South Bend, Indiana, U.S.A. Tom reported
that, although the MPs are very busy and only had limited time, interest was
expressed in the ideas and there may be a good basis for follow-up. He plans on reaching out to some key members
of the Australian Catholic hierarchy in the near future, to introduce Just
Third Way concepts as one way of addressing some controversial issues in a
positive manner.
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| Charles Stewart Parnell |
• During the research for Easter Witness (below), we came across
some speeches by Charles Stewart Parnell, an important figure in Irish politics
in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
One thing that struck us forcibly was Parnell’s insistence that economic
power must precede political power, both to join everyone together in solidarity,
and provide the basis for a true reform of the system based on justice instead
of force.
• CESJ purchased a portable projector, projector
screen, and laser remote controller with which to make presentations. The “maiden voyage” of the equipment at Virginia
Union University was very successful, with none of the usual glitches that tend
to crop up when dealing with new equipment.
• Dr. Norman A. Bailey published an
article in Globes: Israel’s Business
Arena, “The
Choice: Rage and Fear, or Envy and Resentment,” about the then-upcoming
U.S. presidential election that makes interesting reading in retrospect. It begins, “There is a bitter joke in the US
that every two years the American people are asked to choose between the stupid
party and the evil party, which is which depending on whether you are a
Democrat or a Republican. This year is
different. The Trump/Cruz/Sanders phenomenon indicates that the electoral
contest is now between the party of rage and fear (Republican) and the party of
envy and resentment (Democrat). What is
behind this transformation of the political scene, not only in the US but in
Europe as well, when as recently as the turn of the century things looked so
optimistic?” For the rest of the article, follow the link.
• In March Norman Kurland gave a
talk at Virginia Union University on the Just Third Way that was very well
received. A number of students indicated
interest in exploring the possibility of forming a campus CESJ chapter, while
at least one faculty member requested information on becoming a CESJ Fellow.
• In April Dr. Norman Kurland had
an important hour-long conversation with the dean of the University of Chicago
Law School. It turns out that the dean
is a strong advocate of the revival of the work of William Winslow Crosskey
(1894-1968), who seems to be the “patron saint” of “originalism” according
to some commentators. As one
authority noted, “I count Crosskey as one of the greatest legal scholars of
the last fifty years. Around 1953, I met John W. Davis, for whom Crosskey had
clerked on Wall Street when he was a young man. Davis told me – and I agree
with him – that Crosskey’s brain was the best piece of legal equipment he had
ever encountered. Years later, in reflecting on Crosskey’s life and work, I
came to the realization that I admired him not only for the remarkable books he
had written, but particularly because of his moral courage. He persisted in his
work, notwithstanding a torrent of criticism, because he believed he was right.
Crosskey was a great man.” Not by
coincidence, Crosskey’s view of constitutional law was integrated into Easter Witness, although he is cited
only in the bibliography.
• Also in April, CESJ published Easter Witness (below).
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| Msgr. Ryan. Stretched the truth a bit. |
• In June we obtained a very rare
copy of the autobiography of Msgr. John A. Ryan, Social Doctrine in Action: A Personal History (New York: Harper and
Brothers Publishers, 1941). Msgr. Ryan,
of course, was the social justice guru who ruled the Catholic University of
America for twenty years. Reading the
book, we found a number of problematic assertions and the omission of key
information. For example, Msgr. Ryan
carefully failed to note that the dissident priest Father Edward McGlynn, a
follower of Henry George, ultimately fully recanted his adherence to the
principles of georgism. Msgr. Ryan
merely commented that Fr. McGlynn’s excommunication for disobedience was
lifted, thereby making it appear that it was the Vatican that changed its
opinion of the agrarian socialism of George, not Fr. McGlynn. Other examples of equivocal statements and
careful omissions abound throughout the book, many of which can easily be
disproved or rectified.
• In June the CESJ core group met
with Father William Christensen, S.M., Ph.D., who has been working for many
years to implement Just Third Way reforms in Bangladesh, notably in a proposed
woman-owned garment factory. Father Christensen has had a great deal of success
lifting people out of poverty with the programs of the Institute of IntegratedRural Development (IIRD) in Bangladesh (there is a different IIRD in India).
• Also in June, CESJ president
Norman Kurland had a meeting with Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), a
strong supporter of worker ownership.
The meeting was pleasant and positive.
• CESJ’s latest book (makes a great
post-Christmas gift), Easter Witness:
From Broken Dream to a New Vision for Ireland, is available from Amazon
and Barnes
and Noble, as well as by special order from many “regular” bookstores. The book can also be ordered in bulk, which
we define as ten copies or more of the same title, at a 20% discount. A full case is twenty-six copies, and
non-institutional/non-vendor purchasers get a 20% discount off the $20 cover
price on wholesale lots ($416/case).
Shipping is extra. Send enquiries
to publications@cesj.org. An additional discount may be available for
institutions such as schools, clubs, and other organizations as well as
retailers.
• Here’s the usual announcement
about the Amazon Smile program,
albeit moved to the bottom of the page so you don’t get tired of seeing
it. To participate in the Amazon Smile
program for CESJ, go to https://smile.amazon.com/. Next, sign in to your account. (If you don’t have an account with Amazon,
you can create one by clicking on the tiny little link below the “Sign in using
our secure server” button.) Once you
have signed into your account, you need to select CESJ as your charity — and
you have to be careful to do it exactly this way: in the
space provided for “Or select your own charitable organization” type “Center for Economic and Social Justice
Arlington.” If you type anything
else, you will either get no results or more than you want to sift
through. Once you’ve typed (or copied
and pasted) “Center for Economic and
Social Justice Arlington” into the space provided, hit “Select” — and you
will be taken to the Amazon shopping site, all ready to go.
• As of this
morning, we have had visitors from 57 different countries and 52 states and
provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past two
months. Most visitors are from the United States, Russia, Canada, the United
Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The most popular postings this past week in
descending order were “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “Book Review: Field Guide for Heroes,” “How to
Make America Great Again,” “A Dishonest Way to Argue, I: Apples and Oranges,”
and “Minimum Wage Follies.”
Those are the happenings for this
week, at least those 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, so we’ll see it before it goes up.
#30#
