As of this writing, the Dow down more than 250 points on continuing worries about the effects of the new Omicron COVID-19 strain. Once again it demonstrates the fact that we need to get away from obsessing about what is essentially a fantasy world on Wall Street and focus on the real world of Main Street. To do that we need the Just Third Way of Economic Personalism and the Economic Democracy Act:
• Help Joe Walk Again for Economic Justice. Just a reminder, if you haven’t already done so, to visit the GoFundMe campaign and consider making a contribution and spreading word out among your social media networks. It’s off to a good start, but it’s still just a start.
• Stock Market Crazies. It seems that if the market goes shooting up one day this week, it’s guaranteed to go plunging down the next. Of course, when you consider the massive amounts of cash that have been created and pumped into the market, and the increasing wildness of the fluctuations, you might start looking to your hole card. This is exactly the sort of thing that preceded the Crash of 1929. Just sayin’.
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| Dred Scott |
• Abortion and Slavery. Contrary to popular belief, overturning Roe v. Wade would not make abortion illegal anywhere in the United States. It would allow the people of the individual states to decide for themselves if they want to allow it. In a sense, it’s like a replay of the infamous Dred Scott case of 1857 in reverse. Prior to what is considered one of the worst decisions in U.S. legal history, slavery was illegal in some states. Dred Scott, a slave, was taken by his master to a free state and resided there for some time. On returning to Missouri, a state where slavery was legal, Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that being a slave in a free state made him ipso facto free. The Missouri State Supreme Court agreed. The United States Supreme Court overturned the Missouri court’s decision, effectively ruling that a slave was a slave regardless where he . . . sorry, it . . . was taken after purchase, making slavery de facto legal in every U.S. state and territory.
. . . except when the Supreme Court says no.
• Abortion and Business. No, we’re not talking about the business of abortion, although it is pretty big business, but the fears being expressed that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it will be a “business nightmare.” It seems that the pundits are worried that abortion supporters will start boycotting corporations who do business in states where abortion would be declared illegal. The idea seems to be that the threat of acting in restraint of trade will force the Supreme Court to make it illegal to make abortion illegal . . . or something like that. The fact that all someone would have to do is cross the state line to procure an abortion doesn’t seem at all relevant. Having to jump through some hoops to commit a morally repugnant act doesn’t seem like too great a burden when the alternative is forcing your morality on people who have democratically decided they don’t want abortion.
• The Greater Reset. The galley proofs of the upcoming (March 1, 2022) book, The Greater Reset, offering an alternative to the Great Reset of the World Economic Forum, have been checked and the cover finalized. A number of endorsements from some highly placed individuals have been received
• Hortense and Her Whos. In case you’ve been wondering how you might advance the Just Third Way by introducing it to legislators at any and all levels of government, we’ve made it easy for you, with the “Hortense Hears Three Whos“ initiative. Visit the explanatory website, and consider downloading the postcard to send to people in government. Don’t worry if you think they won’t be open to it, as the postcard is intended to get them to open their eyes.
• Economic Personalism Landing Page. 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 series of videos for Sensus Fidelium are doing very well, with over 155,000 total views. The latest Sensus Fidelium video is “The Five Levers of Change.” The video is part of the series on the book, Economic Personalism. The latest completed series on “the Great Reset” can be found on the “Playlist” for the series. 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, edging up to 150,000 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 39 different countries and 39 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, Canada, and Kenya. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Faith AND Reason,” “News from the Network, Vol. 14, No. 47,” “A Slight Problem with Moral Relativism,” “Book Review: ‘A Field Guide for the Hero’s Journey,” and “Social Justice IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice.”
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.
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