Friday, July 18, 2014

News from the Network, Vol. 7, No. 28


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#