This week we again leave it to other media to cover the death of Queen Elizabeth II and specifics regarding the counteroffensive in Ukraine. We, of course, aren’t ignoring Ukraine, but we are pointing out things that the major media have a habit of overlooking:
• “An Excess of Charity”. The September-October issue of the St. Austin Review has a major article, “An Excess of Charity,” by CESJ’s Director of Research, Michael D. Greaney. It builds the case for expanded capital ownership by examining the rise of socialism in light of Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy. It’s a lot more interesting than this makes it sound.
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| Egils Levits |
• Ukraine Will Be Leader in Postwar Europe. Egils Levits, the president of Latvia, has stated his opinion that when Ukraine wins its war with Russia, Ukraine will take its place as one of the most powerful countries in Europe. Of course, there’s powerful and powerful, depending on how you view power. If power means control over others, that can be a very bad thing. If you understand power as control over your own life and destiny, that’s a very good thing . . . but the question is how to do it. We, of course, suggest the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Warren Buffett |
• Buffett v. Nuclear War. Usually, the last person you want to ask for investment advice in a time of crisis is one of the superrich. In general, they have usually figured out ways to profit from crises, especially at the expense of others. For a change of pace, however, Warren Buffett is actually giving us sound advice . . . up to a point. As he says, in the event of a nuclear war, “You might want to own a farm, you might want to own an apartment house, you might want to own securities.” Of course, the problem for most of remains how on earth we are to get the money to buy these good things. The answer, of course, is the Economic Democracy Act.
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| Not quite there yet. . . . |
• Maybe a Grain of Salt. According to the experts, Ukraine’s battlefield success signals an upswing in the stock market . . . of course, this was before the plunge over the last few days allegedly based on inflation figures from August which were “worse” than they thought . . . have any of these people ever actually done any shopping for groceries or bought gas or anything else? Of course, if you want a stable stock market you need a stable economy, and if you want a stable economy, the Economic Democracy Act is pretty much the only game in town — unless you like all the economic and financial instability. . . .
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| Belgium with a 'tude? |
• “Belgium With an Attitude”? What happens “if” Russia loses the unprovoked war it started against Ukraine? Several scenarios have been bruited about, including permanent status as a second or third rate power or (as one commentator put it) “Belgium with an attitude.” Russia under Putin has shown itself to be essentially an international criminal gang, at least in the opinion of many people. It has been held together by threats and fear, and with Putin’s demise or removal, the Russian Federation could start breaking up into its constituent parts, with nothing to hold them together. Of course, if they were to adopt the Economic Democracy Act, not only would power be spread out and the likelihood of another Putin or worse coming along pretty much disappear, there would be a significant incentive for the Russian Federation to stay together.
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| I didn't know Calvin was Russian. |
• Russia’s Straw Army. It has been obvious for months that the mighty Russian military isn’t all that’s it’s been cracked up to be. It is similar to how the British imperial army of the mid-nineteenth century got its reputation. Aside from the Napoleonic Wars, the War of 1812, and the Crimean War, British wars were pretty much all against outclassed, outgunned, and outmanned opponents, although even then they sometimes had a hard go of it, but at least they had the reputation of being (virtually) unbeatable. It appears to be the same deal with the Russians. For decades they’ve been careful to go up against only vastly inferior forces, and as a result built a reputation as a military powerhouse . . . although taking a decade to figure out that you’ve lost a war in Afghanistan after losing about 1,000 soldiers a year killed in battle, and — by some estimates — losing nearly 1,000 each month killed in Ukraine claiming you’re meeting your objectives might raise a few eyebrows. The only question now is how long it’s going to take Russia to call it a day and go home. Using round figures, it should take as many months in Ukraine as years in Afghanistan, so we can expect Russia to throw in the towel sometime around Christmas 2022.
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| May have left a few things behind. . . . |
• Expensive Panic. If you thought a stock market panic is expensive, you ought to see a retreat of panicked troops in battle . . . such as the Ukrainian rout of Russian troops over the past week and a half in eastern Ukraine. According to British Intelligence, the Russian army “withdrew” so fast that it left behind critical — and extremely expensive — parts of their weapons systems that cannot easily be replaced and that could very well cripple the ability of Russia to continue the war as anything other than a desperate and self-destructive rearguard action. In military terms, the Russians “retreated with the artillery lost,” meaning they might no longer have the capability of launching an effective offensive . . . which does not mean that they lack the ability to continue to cause destruction as massive as it is mindless.
• Greater Reset “Book Trailers”. We have produced two ninety-second “Book Trailers” for distribution (by whoever wants to distribute them), essentially a minute and a half commercials for The Greater Reset. There are two versions of the videos, one for “general audiences” and the other for “Catholic audiences”. Take your pick.
• The Greater Reset. CESJ’s new book by members of CESJ’s core group, The Greater Reset: Reclaiming Personal Sovereignty Under Natural Law is, of course, available from the publisher, TAN Books, an imprint of Saint Benedict Press, and has already gotten a top review on that website. It can also be obtained from Barnes and Noble, as well as Amazon, or by special order from your local “bricks and mortar” bookstore. The Greater Reset is the only book of which we’re aware on “the Great Reset” that presents an alternative instead of simply warning of the dangers inherent in a proposal that is contrary to natural law. It describes reality, rather than a Keynesian fantasy world. Please note that The Greater Reset is NOT a CESJ publication as such, and enquiries about quantity discounts and wholesale orders for resale must be sent to the publisher, Saint Benedict Press, NOT to CESJ.
• 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.
• 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 persons 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 21 different countries and 30 states, provinces, and territories in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, Ireland, India, Russia, and Canada. The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “Culture Wars,” “Social Justice, IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice, “What Does Democracy Mean?” “News from the Network, Vol. 15, No. 34,” and “The War Against Fulton Sheen (Continued).”
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 well see that it gets into the next “issue.” Due to imprudent and intemperate language on the part of some commentators, we removed temptation and disabled comments.
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