Friday, July 21, 2017

News from the Network, Vol. 10, No. 29



There seems to be an increasing polarization between “left” and “right,” or between “liberals” and “conservatives.”  Very few people are aware of the fact that the Just Third Way has the potential to attain liberal goals without violating conservative principles:

Medieval Monetary Reform
• This past Tuesday Dr. Norman G. Kurland gave another talk (this one on the importance of monetary reform) on the Just Third Way over the internet to people in Asia, the South Pacific, and Africa.  More than 50% more people attended the session, a 166% increase over last week.  The geographical breakdown was 33% from Australia, 19% from Singapore, 14% from Hong Kong, 11% from New Zealand, 8% from Japan, 5% from India, 3% from Taiwan, 3% from South Africa, 2% from South Korea, and 2% from Thailand.  The talk was very well received, although again due to logistical difficulties (which may soon be fixed), there was no question and answer period.  Interest was again very high, with only two people leaving before the session was over, a remarkable achievement, considering the spread of time zones.
"I'm confused. I thought we developed distributism to counter socialism!"
• The recent postings on the Just Third Way blog on “distributism” (the policy of widespread capital ownership, with a preference for small, family-owned farms and businesses, and large enterprises owned on shares by the workers, developed by G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc) have caused quite a stir in some quarters.  A small number of prominent “Chestertonians” and “distributsts” have started insisting that distributism is a type of socialism, but a “good” type.  We disagree, as do a significant number of less-prominent Chestertonians and distributists.  There have been a few negative commentators (a total of four at last count), but by far the greater number of people is “liking” and “sharing” the posts; within the space of a few hours for one posting there were over 1,000 page views.  People are starting to wonder why prominent Chestertonians and distributists either seem to be in favor of socialism, despite Chesterton and Belloc’s clear statements on the subject, or are remaining silent.
The (Sheep) Skin You Love to Touch
• CESJ has gotten a larger number of applicants for internships than ever before.  This is very encouraging, given the somewhat “esoteric” nature of the Just Third Way and the significant differences between it and the surrounding culture, as well as the fact that interns are not paid.
• The CESJ core group had a very good meeting with “TK,” a doctoral candidate at Webster University who also teaches a number of classes in Just Third Way-related subjects.  TK is looking toward having Norman Kurland and others speak at some of his classes. TK would also like to co-author some journal articles, and has some media outreach.
• Joe Recinos will be attending an international convention on cooperatives sponsored by the National Cooperative Business Association in Washington, DC the first week in October.  He wants to talk about how the Just Third Way and cooperatives fit together.  Joe has also been working on arranging a meeting for Norman Kurland with the NCBA’s new president.
Who needs Grumpy Cat with CESJ's Amazon Smile?
• 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.
• We have had visitors from 33 different countries and 42 states and provinces in the United States and Canada to this blog over the past week. Most visitors are from the United States, India, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ghana.  The most popular postings this past week in descending order were “ ‘The Kingdom of God on Earth’,” “What’s the Problem, Distributist?” “Orestes Brownson v. the Socialists,” “Social Justice IV: The Characteristics of Social Justice,” and “Correcting a Few Distributist Non-Facts.”
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#