Attending: Norman G. Kurland, Michael D. Greaney, Harriet Epstein, Rowland Brohawn, Dawn K. Brohawn, Kemp Harshman.

Materials Distributed: Core Values, Code of Ethics, minutes of 08/18/05 meeting, Katrina Proposal and cover letter to Pres. Bush, Binary Economics Group protocols, Robert Ashford’s “10 Controversial Questions.”

Meeting was called to order at 10:35 AM by Dawn K. Brohawn, Rotating Chairman. The Opening Prayer was given by Harriet Epstein. The Core Values and Code of Ethics were read.

Approval of Executive Committee Meeting Minutes. Norman G. Kurland moved to accept the minutes as corrected. Kemp Harshman seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.

The group also agreed that we change the order of our meeting items to: 1) Decision Items (i.e., Old Business), 2) Focus Topic, and 3) Information/News Items (New Business).

Decision/Follow-Up Items

Changes to CESJ Board Members and Counselors. The executive committee recommends to the board that we shift Fr. John Miller and Bill Nicholson from Board members to CESJ counselors due to their difficulty in attending monthly and quarterly meetings. Norm moved, Rowland seconded, passed unanimously. (They should both be notified of this change and asked for their acceptance of the designation as CESJ counselors.) We also recommend that Harriet Epstein be appointed to the board of directors in recognition of her continuing participation in and contributions to our monthly meetings. NK moved, Rowland seconded, passed unanimously.

We also recommend that Dr. Masadul Alam Choudhury’s name be removed from the list of CESJ Counselors, due to his lack of response to CESJ communications. Dr. Choudhury is an internationally respected Islamic economist who has indicated some friendliness toward binary economics (according to Rodney Shakespeare). He was recommended as a board member by John Pimenta. Aside from sending CESJ a long biography and list of his numerous academic accomplishments, Dr. Choudhury has never responded directly to CESJ’s President, Norman Kurland, who has sent him numerous e-mails. Norm Kurland moved, Rowland Brohawn seconded the motion, which passed unanimously. Notify Rodney about Dr. Choudhury; he may be able to recommend other Islamic economists through his contacts at Trisakti University. We will review the other counselors to recommend additions and deletions in the October Board meeting. Norman Kurland recommended that we invite Sheila Musaji, Nasir Shamsi, Issam Masri and Rick Osbourne to serve as CESJ counselors.

Switching CESJ website from Interland to Ready Hosting (What do we need to do? Timing of switch?). Kemp recommended the following scenario to ensure a safe transfer of our website to Readyhosting: Put up a mirror site on Readyhosting, see if it works, then move the CESJ site to Readyhosting. Don’t take our site off of Interland until we know it’s safe. Call Readyhosting’s technical support (and send them the statistics from Interland) to see if they can handle a website of our size, with e-mail accounts, and with at least the same capacity as Interland. Give notice to Interland when we are ready to cancel our account with them.

Kemp and Rowland should schedule a conference call with Readyhosting to check about their web hosting. Rowland will now focus on upgrading the Capital Homestead.com site. To protect the name “capital homestead”, we will register the related domains (.net, as well as capitalhomesteading.com, .org, .net, and capitalhomesteadact.com, .org, .net). Find out how much it would cost to have the different domain names directed to a main site.

Kemp mentioned the new G-Mail service, which he recommended we try out. This Google service, now in the beta (debugging) stage, allows you to save e-mails on Google’s server and store and retrieve any e-mail with a keyword. Kemp will check to see whether G-Mail can be used with existing ISPs and domain names.

New Arlington Symphony Project [approval for CESJ to act as temporary custodian and 501(c)(3)]. Dawn Brohawn is a violinist and 30-year veteran of the Arlington Symphony. When the ASO declared bankruptcy and disbanded this summer after 60 years of existence, Jean Fry and Joe Recinos recommended that Dawn try and organize the musicians, conductor and supporter to reconstitute a new orchestra in Arlington County. Dawn has been working with the group to rebuild, pursuing a new model for a community orchestra. This new approach would reflect the social justice ideas of Fr. William Ferree and the economic justice ideas of Louis Kelso (via a musician- and community member-owned cooperative, with a non-profit foundation to receive tax-deductible contributions and grants). The new orchestra will seek to strengthen its visibility in the community through a closer working relationship with Arlington’s schools, businesses and other cultural institutions.

Kemp recommended approaching corporations for sponsorships, which would be considered an advertising expense, rather than requesting charitable donations. Norm mentioned that if the new orchestra group decides to organize the new entity as a musicians cooperative, CESJ could help it raise money through the National Cooperative Bank’s Foundation, particularly if the new model incorporates ESOP, CSOP and Justice-Based Management features.

The new orchestra group is facing some practical hurdles, for which CESJ could provide some assistance as an established 501(c)(3) organization. First, in order to carry on fundraising to get itself established, the new orchestra will need to have a 501(c)(3) vehicle. Second, as a result of the ASO bankruptcy, the new orchestra would like to obtain the archives, publicity materials, concert recordings, etc. that will probably be abandoned as having no monetary value. The Bankruptcy Trustee had advised Dawn that an established organization (as opposed to an individual) could take over the abandoned assets of the ASO. He remarked that he couldn’t see a problem with CESJ acting as a temporary custodian for those abandoned assets, while the new orchestra gets itself officially established. One of the people working with the new orchestra committee has offered to obtain storage facilities for the ASO archives

Norman Kurland moved that CESJ establish the “New Arlington Symphony Project” for the purposes of: 1) acting as temporary custodian for the abandoned assets of the old Arlington Symphony until the new symphony is legally formed, and 2) receiving tax-deductible donations on behalf of the new symphony until its own 501(c)(3) status is received (with a separate and restricted account set up, along with appropriate internal controls), and 3) advising in the structuring of the new orchestra’s governance system and ownership design, according to Justice-Based Management principles. Kemp seconded the motion, and the motion passed unanimously. Mike advised that we will need to list the new project account on CESJ’s IRS Form 990.

Strategic Meetings: Cardinal McCarrick and Sen. Rick Santorum (Fr. Cassian Yuhaus follow-up), Sen. George Allen (follow-up). Norman Kurland has to call Fr. Cassian regarding a meeting with Card. McCarrick and Sen. Santorum. He talked two days ago with Va. Del. Bob Marshall regarding Sen. George Allen.

Kelso Binary Economics Discussion Group (progress to date; How can each of us reinforce this effort?; developing FAQs on Binary Economics). Norm reiterated that the purpose of this discussion group is to deepen people’s understanding of the theory of binary economics. Its purpose is not to focus on specific applications. We are trying to attract academics who will teach courses in binary economics. We are trying to teach teachers of teachers. Norm raised the problem that he is at present the only member of the CESJ core group who is actively participating in the discussion group, and he encouraged the rest of the group to send in brief comments and questions from time to time. To develop a set of FAQ’s on binary economics we can start with Robert Ashford’s 12 questions. Add: “Is this a new theory?” We have to help people understand the value of theory, particularly in the social sciences, which in academia are now dominated by socialist theory. Harriet recommended that the BE discussion group emphasize that it is focusing on theory and that we need a separate group to examine applications. She said she had hesitated to join, as she does not feel she is an “expert” in binary economics, but is willing to send in questions and comments. She does not want to get into commenting on the actions of specific individuals. Dawn Brohawn and Mike Greaney will try to become more active in the discussion group as their time permits.

New America Foundation. On September 21^st, Norm Kurland attended a conference sponsored by the New America Foundation, entitled “Beyond Bullets: Economic Strategies for Addressing Poverty.” Hernando de Soto was one of the featured speakers. Norm reported that during the first session, he tried to be recognized by the moderator (Steven Clemens), who kept turning to people he knew in the audience. Following that session, Norm gave Clemens a copy of the “Iraq Oil to the People” proposal and challenged his support of the Alaska model, which Norm characterized as a “bastardization of trickle-down socialism and trickle-down capitalism.” (In the Alaska model, the government owns the oil shares, and distributes the profits to the citizens.) Norm also gave Clemens and Peter Berger (a professor at Boston College and now a Senior Fellow at NAF) a copy of the Capital Homesteading book. At the conference, Norm also had a good conversation with a businessman who founded “America Respect,” the group that co-sponsored the conference with NAF.

Seymour Hersh, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, was another speaker. Like many of the speakers there, he blasted the “neocons.” Norm was most impressed with Hernando de Soto, a world-renowned legal scholar from Peru studying the participation of the poor in the informal economy. Unlike many of the speakers at the NAF conference, de Soto understands the significance of property rights as well as access to credit for the poor. De Soto emphasized that “It’s not just property that’s the problem. It’s also about exclusion.” (He argues that the poor have been exercising property rights informally, but these are not recognized by the law.)

During the question and answer session following de Soto’s presentation, Norm remarked that he agreed with everything that de Soto had said about property rights, but disagreed that you had to have property (actually, capital or accumulated savings) first in order to get credit. Norm explained that mechanisms like the ESOP enable people without assets to gain access to capital credit to acquire productive assets. Norm later spoke to de Soto and gave him a copy of the CH book, the Katrina Plan, the CH flyer, and the Iraq oil proposal. It turns out that Norm and Hernando de Soto have consulted in many of the same countries, including Arusha, Tanzania. De Soto is now talking with Alan Greenspan. Norm will send a follow-up note to de Soto.

Norm’s impression was that while the NAF participants were attacking the neo-conservatives, they themselves repeat the neocon mantra of democratic capitalism. Their methods of getting assets to the poor depend on redistribution through the tax system. Except for Hernando de Soto, the others didn’t seem to see the connection between power and property. In addition to Hernando de Soto, we need to reach other world icons such as Muhamed Yunus (the Grameen Bank founder) and Mahbub al Haq (the World Bank).

World Business Academy. Dan Parker wrote David Zweig, the editor of the World Business Academy, which includes people like futurist Hazel Henderson, Willis Harmon (a co-founder and scholar who taught at Stanford on the social aspects of technology) and progressive business executives. The organization is trying to mobilize business people for social change, to address social problems. They believe that business will replace government as the engine for social development. They are seeking ethically based business models. Dan recommended that they get in touch with Norm. They publish articles of 3,000 word length and 9,000 word length. Norman Kurland sent them the Halifax paper (“JBM and the Just Third Way”), c. 10K words (which Norm offered to shorten), and the Katrina Plan. The editor was interested and is considering publishing the Halifax article. Zweig mentioned to Norm that he sent the Katrina plan to someone he knows “who has done more ESOPs than anyone in the country” (this may be John Menke). Zweig also mentioned that he knows the Deputy Chairman of the Federal Reserve during Ronald Reagan’s administration.

Bob Crane Marketing Letter. In an email response to Sigrid Crane regarding an essay she had sent him, Bob developed some excellent language that could be used for marketing the American Revolutionary Party: “[T]he missing element in pursuing the goals of America’s founders is the need to protect private property and to promote economic justice by perfecting the financial system in order to broaden capital ownership.” We should ask Bob’s permission to put extracts of his letter on the CESJ web site.

Focus topic for next meeting: Planning the 2006 Focus on the Fed event.

Focus Topic: The Katrina Project for Regional Rebirth

Progress report (distribution and outreach: Virgil Wood, Stephanie Duncan, Bill Redding/the Sierra Club, Muslim networks; CESJ member distribution). Norman Kurland is counting on Stephanie Green Duncan and Bill Redding (regional representative of the Sierra Club) to mobilize their groups and get to Pres. Clinton. They are part of the Mississippi River Basin Alliance, which has the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, and local community groups. Bill Redding has talked to people in the Alliance about the Katrina Plan, including the Mayor of Baton Rouge, who is supposed to call Norm.

Today Bill Redding is meeting at the Marriott in Crystal City with representatives of the Clean Water Act; he hopes to get them on board with CESJ’s Katrina Plan.

How can we “get the word out” to prime movers and policymakers? Norm has sent the Katrina Plan to President Bush, Karl Rove and Andrew Card (although we don’t expect a response). He has also sent it to Sen. George Allen and to Mike Espy. We are trying to reach former President Bill Clinton through people in the Mississippi River Basin Alliance. Mike Greaney has been sending e-mails to blogs on the Catholic Directory, mentioning the Katrina Plan and sending links, if the groups seem appropriate. Rowland Brohawn has sent the link to the Katrina plan to various reporters and commentators. John Watkins is sending the Katrina Plan to people in his network, telling them to get in touch with CESJ.

Washington Post reporter Spencer Shu called Norm Kurland after he came across the Katrina Plan on the CESJ website. He asked if the Katrina Plan had anything to do with “urban homesteading” (a way of making home ownership available to the poor by having them fix up condemned properties). Norm answered that capital homesteading is a concept for getting income-producing assets to the poor through access to capital credit. Shu asked to be kept abreast of progress with our Katrina Plan.

The appeal of the Katrina Plan is that nobody knows how to pay for the clean-up and reconstruction that will need to take place – the only options they have are raising taxes or going into debt with countries like China. Everybody is talking “job creation,” nobody is asking who will own the redevelopment and new wealth.

News/Information Items

Tax Policy Conference (follow-up meeting with Stephen Entin/Inst. For Research on the Economics of Taxation; Bob Wells/Tax Notes). On September 9, 2005 Norm Kurland attended a conference at the National Press Club on Federal Tax Reform. There were forty or fifty people there. About twelve speakers were seated at the head table, including Norman Kurland. The conference was chaired by the president of Tax Analysts and Advocates, which publishes the highly respected Tax Notes Magazine. There were two former commissioners of the IRS: Donald Alexander and Sheldon Cohen, as well as a best-selling critic of the tax system, and representatives of the Urban Institute.

Norman Kurland was probably invited as a result of his power point presentation on Capital Homesteading, delivered to the President’s Advisory Panel on Tax Reform. At the conference Norman Kurland handed out three copies of Capital Homesteading, as well as copies of his earlier presentation. Also sitting at the table was Stephen Entin, a domestic policy advisor (possibly the Asst. Treasury Secretary on tax policy) who had worked with Norman Bailey when he was in the White House.

As a result, Norman Bailey set up a meeting on September 16 at the University Club between Norm Kurland, Stephen Entin and himself. At that meeting Entin raised thoughtful questions relating to the technical aspects of implementing Capital Homesteading. Entin said he would get back in touch with us.

Another result of the 9/9 Tax Policy Conference was that the president of Tax Analysts and Advocates gave a copy of Norm’s power point presentation to Bob Wells, the editor of Tax Notes. He called and requested an article; we gave him Chapter 8 of Capital Homesteading, which reads well as an essay on reforming the tax system. Norm suggested that Wells just extract what he wanted. Wells said he planned to republish it as an article in the October 12^th issue and would send Norm a copy.

Vancouver Syntegration (11/17-20/05) on Developing the New Dawn University. Norm was contacted by Jean-Paul Froidevoix of Team Syntegrity in Canada. He invited Norm to participate in a syntegration on 11/17-20/05, bringing people together to develop the “New Dawn University.” The sponsoring group is the “New Dawn Community.” They are searching for new ideas for structuring and financing change in the educational system, and want to build a new educational institution, New Dawn University. Norm had a conference call with Jean-Paul and Sister Fleurette Sweeney and later talked with Kathleen Forsythe, a social entrepreneur who had been at the East St. Louis syntegration. (Jean-Paul had been part of the Syntegration team in East St. Louis in 1999.) They seem to be open-minded to the ideas of binary economics and Justice-Based Management.

Rodney Shakespeare: Binary Economics Presentation at Trisakti Conference. In the past, Rodney Shakespeare had made a series of presentations on binary economics before Islamic scholars and economists. As a result, he was invited to speak at Trisakti University in Indonesia and at another in South East Asia (possibly Singapore), and also to make presentations at Harvard and McGill University. Rodney feels that the idea of no-interest credit is capturing the interest of Islamic scholars. We think that Islamic scholars, because of their interest in no-interest credit, may open the doors to academia for binary economics. We hope Rodney will be successful in getting these universities to adopt the Binary Economics book as a textbook.

Virgil Wood is also trying to put together a gathering at Harvard in October. Robert Ashford, Walter Fauntroy, Norman Kurland, and various African American scholars will meet at Harvard, to investigate Martin Luther King’s idea of “the Beloved Community,” and to introduce to these scholars the ideas of binary economics and capital homesteading.

AmericanRevolutionaryParty.US website. The ARP web site has been transferred to us, and we are using Readyhosting as the Internet Service Provider, Rowland Brohawn is the webmaster. Rowland added new links on the menu bar (ARP Platform, Declaration on Monetary Justice, Capital Homesteading Summary). The home page needs some corrections and we should add three forms: 1) a signature page for the Declaration, and 2) a form for people to join ARP (with a comment line, “What can I do to help?”; give some suggestions from the CESJ site), and 3) a list of the Declaration signers and ARP members. Fix the picture of the revolutionaries at the top of the site (they’re somewhat cut off). We should also use this web site to sell our “Own or be Owned” T-shirts. We’ll have to fulfill the orders until we find someone to fulfill them for us. The natural customers are college-age kids. Try to find an entrepreneur among the student groups. We can also sell “Own or be Owned” coffee mugs and offer “print them yourself” post cards as “freebies.”

We need to find potential political candidates who will carry the ARP message.

The next Executive Committee Meeting will be combined with the quarterly board meeting. The next Board Meeting will be held Saturday, October 15, 2005, at 9:30 am.

A motion to adjourn was made by Rowland Brohawn and seconded by Norman G. Kurland. The motion passed unanimously and the meeting adjourned at 12:15 pm.