Although things may seem pretty dark at the moment, some good things are happening . . . if we stop to take a look:
• Justice University Sessions. Established in concept in 2004, Justice University (as a project of CESJ) has been organizing and offering informal educational sessions in-person and on-line since 2008. (We are now in the process of formally registering the Justice University trademark.) The first formal sessions were held a year and a half ago, and a number of series of videos from “Sensus Fidelium” have been made that double as Justice University courses. A textbook, Economic Personalism, has been published under the Justice University imprint and a second series of certification courses are scheduled to begin next week. As a critically needed educational institution, Justice University appears to be off to a good start . . . if by “start” we mean an organization that’s been around for almost a generation can be called “starting”!
• Economic Democracy Act Resolution. A resolution to support the passage of the Economic Democracy Act is gaining interest and even a little traction at the state and local level across the country. By demonstrating a base of popular support for the EDA, it is hoped that the resolution will encourage Congress to pass the EDA at the earliest possible date.
 |
| "Yes. They have more money." |
• The Rich Are Different. It’s apocryphal (meaning he never actually said it), but Ernest Hemmingway supposedly responded to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The rich are different,” with “Yes, they have more money.” Actually, what the rich have is collateral, which allows them to create money for investment in capital that generates huge amounts of income . . . which they use to make themselves different. These days, as revealed in books such as The Panama Papers, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and Capital Without Borders, the ultra rich are able to do pretty much as they please, even to the point of circumventing laws that bind everybody else. If nothing else, the EDA will act as something of a leveler, allowing everyone who qualifies to be a capital owner and making the rich more accountable by taking away their virtual monopoly over past savings.
• The Great Reset. Members of the CESJ Core Group are currently in negotiations with a major Catholic publisher to do a response to the so-called “Great Reset” being proposed to solve all the world’s problems. With the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism, CESJ has a solution, while most if not all others commenting on the Great Reset have limited themselves to complaining and warning people of the dangers without offering an alternative.
• Economic Personalism Landing Page Launched. A landing page for CESJ’s latest publication, Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person, has been created and can be accessed by clicking on this link. Everyone is encouraged to visit the page and send the link out to their networks.
• Economic Personalism. When you purchase a copy of Economic Personalism: Property, Power and Justice for Every Person, be sure you post a review after you’ve read it. It is available on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble at the cover price of $10 per copy. You can also download the free copy in .pdf available from the CESJ website. If you’d like to order in bulk (i.e., ten or more copies) at the wholesale price, send an email to publications@cesj.org for details. CESJ members get a $2 rebate per copy on submission of proof of purchase. Wholesale case lots of 52 copies are available at $350, plus shipping (whole case lots ONLY). Prices are in U.S. dollars.
• Sensus Fidelium Videos, Update. CESJ’s new series of videos for Sensus Fidelium contrasting economic personalism and the Great Reset is off to a good start, although we missed this past week due to unforeseen circumstances. The latest Sensus Fidelium video is “The Just Third Way with Norman Kurland.” The latest completed series on “the Great Reset” can be found on the “Playlist” for the series. We expect to begin a new series on Economic Personalism next week, but the previous series of sixteen videos on socialism is available by clicking on the link: “Socialism, Modernism, and the New Age,” along with some book reviews and other selected topics. For “interfaith” presentations to a Catholic audience they’ve proved to be popular, with over 101,000 views to date. They aren’t really “Just Third Way videos,” but they do incorporate a Just Third Way perspective. You can access the playlist for the entire series The point of the videos is to explain how socialism and socialist assumptions got such a stranglehold on the understanding of the role of the State and thus the interpretation of Catholic social teaching, and even the way non-Catholics and even non-Christians understand the roles of Church, State, and Family, and the human person’s place in society.
• Shop online and support CESJ’s work! Did you know that by making your purchases through the Amazon Smile program, Amazon will make a contribution to CESJ? Here’s how: First, go to https://smile.amazon.com/. Next, sign in to your Amazon 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.
• Blog Readership. We have had visitors from 34 different countries and 38 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, India, the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Australia. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “The New Christianity and the Great Reset,” “The Best Form of Government,” “Social Justice, IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice,” “A Measure of Reform,” and “Did C.S. Lewis Approve of Socialism?”
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.” Due to imprudent language on the part of some commentators, we removed temptation and disabled comments.
#30#
