Attending: Norman G. Kurland, Dawn K. Brohawn, Kemp Harshman, Michael D. Greaney, Bob Scanlon, Rowland Brohawn, Jean B. Fry, Harriet Epstein.

Materials Distributed: Core Values, Code of Ethics, Minutes of 08/18/04 and 09/22/04 Executive Committee Meetings, Fourth Quarter Treasurer’s Report, Consolidated Year End Treasurer’s Report, 48-month “Plan of Attack” for new political party, search results for the American Revolutionary Party, Letter on proposed ESOP/CSOP buyout from East St. Louis City Manager to Schnuck’s Supermarkets, September 2004 issue of Golden Rivet.

Meeting was called to order at 10:20 AM by Harriet Epstein, rotating chairman.

The Opening Prayer was offered by Kemp Harshman. The Core Values and Code of Ethics were read.

Approval of Board and Executive Committee Minutes. Bob Scanlon moved to accept the August and September Executive Committee Meeting Minutes.  Rowland Brohawn seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.

Approval of Treasurer’s Report.  There was some discussion on CESJ’s fundraising.  Since we have not held a regular membership/fundraising drive for a few years (until the newsletter is restarted), we are eating into our reserves (about $2,000 per year). Mike mentioned that a number of our projects (see discussion on marketing of Capital Homesteading book) are designed to raise enough to cover CESJ’s annual administrative expenses in the short-term. Norman Kurland moved to accept the Quarterly and Annual Treasurer’s Reports.  Bob Scanlon seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.

News/Information Items

Joe Lunch Buckett collaboration with CESJ/Endorsement of Iraq proposal/48 month plan/Name for new political party (American Revolutionary Party).  Norman Kurland said that we may have found an outside source to market our ideas.  Rick Osbourne (“Joe Lunch Buckett”) is enthusiastic about CESJ, Capital Homesteading and Louis Kelso’s binary economics. Prior to our knowledge of Joe Lunch Buckett’s existence, Rick had put information on Kelso’s and our ideas on his website (www.joelunchbuckett.com). He is now pushing our Iraq proposal on his website.

Rick (with the inputs of Norm and several CESJ members) developed a 48-month plan for the next election, which includes the launching of a new political party.  Rick accepted the name suggested by Norm — “American Revolutionary Party” (ARP). Norman Kurland test-marketed the name, with “at least 80% giving a favorable reaction.” One suggested motto: “In the spirit of the First American Revolution, with the vision of the Second American Revolution.”

Norm acknowledged that the name is controversial, but he felt that “we’re not controversial enough” and not drawing enough media attention.  While this new political organization is completely separate from CESJ (to protect our 501(c)(3) status), the new party will be drawing upon the ideas of Kelso and CESJ for its platform.

Rick and his webmaster are putting up a new website, www.americanrevolutionaryparty.us, which will include a link to CESJ’s, the GlobalJusticeMovement.org’s, and the JoeLunchBuckett.com web sites, as well as to the Capital Homesteading book.  Kemp Harshman is registering the name as a trademark, and will be registering two domain names (americanrevolutionaryparty.us and americanrevolutionaryparty.net). 

By April 2005, ARP will have a 6-month plan to inaugurate the party, and will convene on the Friday before the annual CESJ celebration.  ARP will launch itself at the front of the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C. to draw press attention and to highlight the importance of the Fed in “creating a nation of owners.” We will invite Alan Greenspan to attend.  Kemp said that we ought to hire somebody to play George Washington and Abe Lincoln and get their statements recorded on videotape. Michael D. Greaney said we should have George Mason, too. Maybe we should ask Pat Clawson (a TV journalist) if he would be the “interviewer.” We should send the videotape to C-Span and stream it from the CESJ website.

Rick Osbourne (in the persona of “Joe Lunch Buckett”) should send a copy of Capital Homesteading to Brian Lamb of C-Span.

Formation of Global Justice Institute (Bob Crane).  Bob Crane is involved in many things (including the writing of a five-volume set on the parallels between America’s founding principles and those of Islam), but Norm Kurland and Radwan Masmoudi felt that he would be the right person to head up a new interfaith institute to be called the “Global Justice Institute,” which would reach out to moderate Muslims with principles and strategies of economic and social justice. Norm is recommending that the new Institute adopt the CESJ core values and code of ethics.

It’s important that Bob be freed from handling administrative details, so he could serve as the resident scholar and chief strategist. They are now working to raise money to hire a competent adminstrator/Executive Director. Bob is the person who could be a bridge to the Muslim community, as well as a liaison to the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy and their connections.  CSID, which is focused more on political democracy than on economic democracy, can help the GJI tap into the establishment for funding, and for interfaith outreach and university access.

ESOP Buyout proposal for Schnuck’s Supermarket in East St. Louis.  Schnuck’s (a successful supermarket chain with 17,000 employees) is planning to close one of their stores in East St. Louis in two months. The average worker there is earning $45,000 a year in pay and benefits; managers are earning $85,000.  Rep. Wyvetter Younge wants to save that store and has been working with Norm Kurland to develop a worker-customer buyout. Schnuck’s is demanding $1.5 million from the city, state and union. The Schnuck family may be thinking of selling to developers. Rep. Younge is trying to get the governor to support the worker-customer buyout.  Norm has contacted the National Cooperative Bank to see if they would be interested in making a buyout loan.  NCB does work with supermarkets and Meg Shrum (our NCB contact on the Oglebay Norton worker buyout initiative) knows Craig Schnuck. Rep. Younge and Norm have talked to the head of the State Commerce Department on the idea. The objective is not to subsidize Schnuck’s in East St. Louis, but to turn it around and reorganize it with a Justice-Based Management plan.

Norman Kurland Presentations: Beyond Just Faith, Olney, MD; Darul Salaam Center.  Norm Kurland spoke before Bob Scanlon’s Beyond Just Faith group; Marie Kurland and Dawn Brohawn also attended. The Just Faith talk was a good experience.  A pair of attendees joined as CESJ family members and signed the Shared Vision Statement.  One church member sounds like he became very fired up after reading Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen and Binary Economics.  Norm is particularly interested in how we can work with lawyer Anne Marie Prangley, who said she would try and arrange a meeting for us with Cardinal McCarrick in D.C.

Last Tuesday, through Dr. Bakir al-Hassani, Norm Kurland was invited to speak at the Darul Salaam Center (a group consisting largely of Shiite Muslims from Iraq). The members there are highly educated; the 30 attendees included doctors engineers and other professionals.  The talk focused on CESJ’s proposal to spread oil shares to every Iraqi citizen, the Abraham Federation, and the Just Third Way.  Norm and Marie Kurland felt that people listened very respectfully to the ideas; we’ll wait to see if there is any follow-up from the group.

Norman Kurland and Bob Crane Participation in Iraq Oil Simulation (American University).  Norm Kurland and Bob Crane took part in a policy simulation event at American University, in which participants representing different interest groups in Iraq attempted to develop some strategic agreement on how to restructure Iraq’s oil industry.  Bob Crane took the Sunni position, while Norm was in the American group.  One of the participants working in Norm’s group was an oil industry consultant trying to get extraction contracts in Iraq for Eastern European countries.  He and Norm agreed to go their separate ways. Others were looking at the situation in political terms.  The others were definitely leaning toward State ownership (including the Wall Street crowd who felt it would be easier to deal with a State bureaucracy than with private companies with shareholders).  In the plenary session, one professor accused Norm of being a socialist, then switched and accused him of being a Halliburton stooge.  Norm, after having explained briefly the Just Third Way approach to empowering every Iraqi citizen through private property ownership of the oil industry, responded in public, “Professor, it’s time you start professing the truth.” Norman Kurland stated that it was difficult to say if anything will come out of this experience because most of the people who participated are academics who seemed to have little real-world experience and are trapped in the old paradigms.  A few students came up to Norm afterward, including one Palestinian law student who seemed to respond positively to Norm’s remarks about the Abraham Federation concept.

Focus Topic: Marketing Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen

Status report on project (Steve Roy website; Web searches on Capital Homesteading; Press release on book).  Steve Roy and his web designer are almost ready to set up the Capital Homesteading website.  It will be a “pure” website devoted solely to capital homesteading, specifically to selling Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen.  They are not concerned about others (including CESJ) also marketing the book.

We are slowly building a web presence for the book. Mike reported that the number of hits on CESJ’s website for the book totaled 1,351 in fiscal year 2003. The Global Justice Movement.org and JoeLunchBuckett.com sites will also mention the book. We will encourage Rick Osbourne to put order buttons linking to Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com on his website and to join their affiliate programs (to earn commissions on the sale of books sold through those websites).  Kemp suggested that Steve Roy and Rick Osbourne add a button on their sites inviting people to receive CESJ information or update on Capital Homesteading activities. Steve needs to develop a mailing list; hire a temp to compile it from Norm and Dawn’s e-mail address books.

The Capital Homestead press release is almost ready. Through extensive web searches Michael D. Greaney has been tracking increasing mentions of the book on other sites.  He has located a large number of directories for newspapers and a limited number of other media, throughout the US, Canada and the other countries, to which he will send press releases.

Review of current marketing plan — pre-election and post-election.  After the elections the issues will stay the same.  We will adjust the press release to reflect who was elected.  Stress the Plan not the Man.  Harriet Epstein commented that people are just voting based on their intense dislike of one of the two major candidates, not for a candidate or his ideas. Kemp noted that there is now a conflict between value systems.  People are identifying with either Bush’s or Kerry’s value systems. Kemp observed that people need to have time to think about higher concerns than just economic survival.  We are part of a historical shift from slavery to homesteading to wage slavery to Capital Homesteading.  Norm pointed out that CESJ was formed in 1984 to turn George Orwell’s vision upside-down.

The press release we send out after the election will emphasize the division in America and the hunger for new ideas, including on how to save Social Security and Medicare. We are sending random e-mails at present, but will send out the press release systematically when it is ready. It will be sent individually to each e-mail address, with blind carbons to Mike’s CESJ e-mail to track recipients. Send press release to: Business and Economics editors, think tanks, researchers and advocates for reforming Social Security/Medicare, and university business schools.

Norm suggested that on the CESJ website, we should add the two-page overview on Capital Homesteading near the book flyer.

How do we activate the CESJ network to support the marketing campaign?  We need to send a marketing package to our current network, and get them to buy and market the book to their networks and to their Congressional representatives.  It will contain the press release, sample letters to editors.  A marketing letter will be sent out in time for Christmas to CESJ’s maillist, plus to those who have signed the “Shared Vision Statement” and have joined the Global Justice Movement as members. Tell members what we want them to do. We need to create an e-mail list, make the e-mail list from current data we have already.  Tell people to buy a copy for themselves and one copy for their library. The theme should be “give a gift to America.”

In the marketing letter, stress 1) Bush’s and Kerry’s plan (including their emphasis on jobs and education) won’t solve the crisis of the $70 trillion shortfall facing Social Security and Medicare; 2) deficits; 3) America is losing its industrial base and we need growth that will bring higher incomes coming from the bottom line; 4) the baby bust is coming and older workers will be competing with younger for jobs; 5) temporary workers with no benefits.  We need a more realistic solution that doesn’t ratchet up costs.

We need to take on the Wall Street crowd, that we have to get out of the game of speculation in old securities and into the game of investment in new growth.  One of the reasons that Norm believes Wall Street will oppose Capital Homesteading is that there is today an expectation of capital gains. Capital Homesteading would pay out all dividends (thus no increase in value per share).  People will get their equity growth through issuance of new shares.  While no one will suffer economic dilution, there will be political dilution as new owners are created and economic power gets spread out more democratically.

Decision/Follow-Up Items

Follow-up on CESJ response to Daniel Moore.  Daniel Moore has formed the ACE Network, following his meeting with Norm Kurland and Dawn Brohawn earlier this year in Ohio.  He has been sending his materials to Mike Greaney for editorial review.  He buys into Capital Homesteading, and CESJ’s ideas on economic and social justice.  He is putting up references to CESJ on his new website.  He has some differences with CESJ on issues of governance and control of the various profit and non-profit entities he plans to create as part of his network.  We have given him permission to put a link on his website to CESJ’s.

Progress Report on CESJ and Global Justice Movement websites.  We have added the minutes from 2004 and will add past minutes later.  We will have sections for ONEEEA’s newsletters on the worker buyout initiative and to their website. We are adding Bob Crane’s article on “Jihad” against the terrorists.  We need to add the pictures from the Ownership Campaign, the meetings with Pope John Paul II, Kelso, Ferree, etc., and rotate pictures. We should also add to the scrolling message: “The Problem: “Too few own the wealth of nations. Too many own nothing.” And “The Solution: Make Every Person an Owner.” “The Vision: The Just Third Way” “The Program: Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen.”  Put a “Links” button on the home page.

Kemp found a new web hosting service with many new capabilities, “GoDaddy.com,” one of which is a “photogallery” capability.  He suggested that we think about putting up a slideshow of CESJ’s photos.  The GJM website (being served by 100megshosting.com) went down for about a week, there was a glitch somewhere in the server.  We will probably switch GJM’s server to GoDaddy.com.

Progress report on the 10,000 Name Campaign.  As of today we have 6,947 signatories, including another 60 from Father Bill, who spoke to students and faculty at Notre Dame.

Joe Recinos Project in Guatemala.  Joe Recinos was hired for a consultancy recommending an ESOP/JBM strategy for “drawback” companies in Guatemala.  Bill Gates’ father is on the board of the group who contacted Joe.  Joe was working with the son of Eduardo Palomo (who worked with Norm and Joe on the ESOP law project in Guatemala); the son has become very interested in Justice-Based Management and ESOP.

Coverage of Abraham Federation proposal for Iraq (Argentina Posta; Myers Flat News).  Michael D. Greaney found a Spanish translation of the CESJ Iraq proposal on a website in Argentina, as well as a mention by Carol Ruth Silver in a Myers Flat newsletter of the Abraham Federation proposal.

Progress report on Bill Perk Carbondale Community Investment Corporation Initiative.  Bill Perk wants to donate to CESJ (for a tax write-off) a foreclosed house (formerly belonging to Pepper Holder, a community activist). Bill purchased this house for use as a base for a Carbondale CESJ chapter and to provide a home to Pepper Holder to live in and organize a Carbondale CIC initiative in the community.  Bill sees that this could offer a model for other low-income areas where people are losing their homes due to increases in property taxes.

Progress report on Middle East Conference, “Building Security through Economic Justice in Iraq.”  Radwan Masmoudi of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, Bob Crane, and Norm Kurland are hoping that the conference can take place early next year.  Funding for the project has not gone forward yet.  Bob Crane is coming into town next week, and the situation can be discussed.  Bob will be meeting with a Muslim investment banking firm who might be able to assist in financing the project.

Progress report on Oglebay Norton Employee Buyout.  Oglebay Norton Company has been in the bankruptcy courts for months.   There was a hearing in late September, in which the court dismissed all but one point, the issue of sufficient insurance coverage for possible asbestos claims.  Once the management has satisfied the judge on this point and he issues a ruling, we must wait thirty days before opening negotiations for the buyout.  The current CEO is open to negotiations with ONEEEA and its professional advisors. There may be some competition to purchase the marine services division. Norm felt that a new worker-owned company would have an advantage as a Subchapter S corp with an ESOP; company would not be taxed while the shares stay in the ESOP.  In addition to cost advantages under JBM, we could work out a long-term contract with the parent company, giving them a share of profits (in the form of reduced shipping charges). Norman Kurland and Dawn K. Brohawn met with Stu Thies as a potential CEO for a reorganized worker-owned company.  He knows the industry and is respected by many of the ON workers.  He is not planning to stay longer than 2-3 years, and would then help in selecting his successor.

Progress report on Brazil ESOP Project.  There has been no progress yet.  The bishop spoke with Michael Clasby while Clasby was in Brazil.  There has been no meeting yet with the government officials.  Michael Clasby sent Norman Kurland his reorganization plan.  We need a leader with strength.

Progress report on Bangladesh JBM Garment Factory Project.  Norm has not yet received the legal documents from the lawyer hired by Fr. Bill; these were promised to Norm by the end of September.

Follow-up on April meeting projects.  There has been no follow-through on some of the proposed projects discussed in the brainstorming and planning session in April. CESJ has been focusing its efforts on marketing of the Capital Homesteading book.

David Pauling.  David Pauling wrote a book, which shows congruence with CESJ’s programs.  It attacks the wage system; makes an emotional appeal for change.  He called Norman Kurland Thursday night, and got all excited about the new political party that Norm and Rick Osbourne are forming (the American Revolutionary Party).  David had read the Capitalist Manifesto and in one chapter of his book, he mentions Capital Homesteading, Kelso and CESJ (as “best source” for learning about the idea of Capital Homesteading). The back cover of his book does an excellent job of crystallizing the issues; use as model for CESJ press release.

Focus topic for executive committee meeting.  Marketing Capital Homesteading for Every Citizen in light of post-election results.

The next Executive Committee Meeting will be held Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at noon.  The next Board Meeting will be held Saturday, January 15, 2005 at 9:30 am.

A motion to adjourn was made by Dawn K. Brohawn and seconded by Michael D. Greaney. The motion passed unanimously and the meeting adjourned at 3:00 pm.