A Free Greenland?

This report from the French news agency AFP, sent via Yahoo, talks of the island of Greenland seeking it's independence from Denmark. According to the report, Greenlanders have felt that both Denmark and the US - thanks to its airbase on Thule - have had too much say in its internal affairs. Authorities have found recent big caches of both gold and diamonds on this, the world's biggest island. The promise of huge oil deposits are also there.

If Greenland wishes to be free, her 57,000 citizens should find out about Distributism, so as to give her people economic and political stability. It also should avoid both the UN and the WTO. Otherwise, it would just as quickly lose her independence to those sad fanatics promoting world government and world economy.

May God protect the future Free Greenland!

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Stop the American National ID Card Scam!

There is a recently established weblog that is tracking a horrid scheme to shove a National ID Card scheme down the throats of Americans. Using the disaster of 9/11 as an excuse, both Democratic and Republican senators and congressmen want to force Americans to carry the equivalent of the old Soviet "internal passport" on them always.

Or else!

A coalition of groups, from the pro-Communist ACLU to the American Conservative Union and Eagle Forum, have joined forces to demand Congress stop this made rush to throw away freedom for an illusion of security. They are already considering it in the UK, and they have gone far down the path toward an Orwellian dictatorship. Other nations have done likewise, and it has not helped to reduce terrorist threats there.

There is a London-based group called Privacy International that tracks horrid schemes for expanding big government like National ID Cards. Please bookmark them, and let them know about us.

Also, please bookmark the blog "Say No To a National ID Card", and take action to make the US Congress stop this madness.

If reading this overseas, and your nation already has such a card system in place, begin an education campaign where you are to revoke it for good, no matter how long it takes. And please keep us informed on such efforts, with our thanks.

In future, we will have Privacy International as a link on this blog.

http://nonationalid.blogspot.com/

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New Use For Old Spuds

This Associated Press article, dated September 20th, comes from the Daily News of Bangor, Maine. With potatoes fetching low prices on the market, and demand for high-quality spirits on the increase in the US, this Maine farmer wants to turn much of his potato crop into micro-brewed vodka.

Hoping to start production this spring, the company - called Maine Distilleries - would only be the second vodka distillery in America creating vodka from potatoes. The idea had been floating around local potato farmer circles fora long while, but now looks valid because of advances in hand-crafting spirits. They are aiming for the high-price, high-quality market vodka buyers.

Chesterton and Belloc were beer and wine drinkers, but I am sure they would approve of this type of micro-brewed spirit competing with the big distillers in the industry. If all goes well, Lord willing, Maine Distilleries should have a fine future, and they - and other small businesses and co-ops like them - should get all our support.

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The Curse Of Euthanasia in the UK

This report from the September 19th edition of the London Observer, via the far-left wing London Guardian, reports that British doctors have been murdering at least 18,000 terminally ill patients per year.

The report notes that many people are killing these aging, ill people on their own. The population is aging because we do not have enough people born to care for them. We don't have enough to care for them because we have aborted and contracepted them out of existence. We abort and contracept them out of existence because we want to "be free and unrepressed" by indulging in illicit sexual activity with whoever we wish. Or else we want to have "perfect" babies that are racially perfect or financially affordable.

Euthanasia has been part of the current movement based in the old Eugenics Movement that Chesterton and Belloc fought many years ago. Chesterton's 1922 work Eugenics and Other Evils rightly railed against sterilizing and killing the mentally handicaped, the poor and alcoholic, and certain ethnic minorities by a self-proclaimed "elite". Their ideological descendants continue their war against life by subjecting the ill and old to death by syringe, rather than the suppossed "inferior peoples".

There is a bill currenting going through the British Parliamnet that would allow doctors to do to the old and very ill what is being done in Holland....killing them under the excuse of "compassion and dignity". This bill must be quashed and quashed hard! Now! Any British readers of this blog should get on Parliament's case, so that the UK does not end up like Holland.

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Foundation Stones of Distributist Thought

For new readers of this blog who are curious to read more about what this alternative to Capitalism, Socialism, Communism and Fascism is, the Review encourages you to buy - or get off the Web - the five "core works" or foundation stones of Distributist Thought.

They are:

Pope Leo XIII: "Rerum Novarum", written in 1891.

Hilaire Belloc: "The Servile State", written in 1912, and "An Essay on the Restoration of Property", written in 1936.

G. K. Chesterton: "What's Wrong With the World", written in 1910, and "The Outline of Sanity", written in 1926.

There are other works by friends and allies of Belloc and Chesterton who have added and contributed to early Distributist Thought during their lifetimes. Others like Dorothy Day, Peter Maurin, the founders of the Mondragon Co-operative Movement, Dr. E. F. Schumacher of "Small Is Beautiful" fame have further developed it up to today. But these five "core works" are necessary to know where it all started.

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Hope For Syrian Poor Through Micro-crediting

This report from the September 8th edition of the Arabic News reports on efforts underway to help Syria's poor through financing small businesses. This trend is called micro-crediting, and the Syrian government - alas, still under a Ba'athist Socialist tyranny - is cooperating with the UN (of all groups!) to help teach and finance poor women in starting small businesses in the rural areas of the country.

This is good to help poor rural families break free from complete dependence on farming. However, this doesn't go far enough in aiding Syrians into a Distributist society. Power has not been de-centralized, elections including other parties have not been forthcoming. And her current tension with both Israel and the US over Iraq does not help matters either.

But micro-credit financing for the poor rural women is a good first step.

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For readers of the DR who wish they had a gmail account

For readers of the DR, I am giving away six free invites to gmail which is still in beta. I use gmail and I find it an excellent way of keeping track of conversations because of its conversation oriented interface and its huge mailbox (1GB). Also there are a lot of email addresses that aren't taken since it hasn't been around as long as Yahoo! mail or HotMail. Anyhow the first six who ask and answer a simple distributist question get an invite. Email me at david.a.hart@gmail.com if you are interested.

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Libya Following In China's Footsteps?

As reported by the French news agency AFP - through Yahoo! News' Africa section of September 6th - the Kadhafi dictatorship of Libya wants to open up her economy to foreign investment. After many years of economic and political isolation, the current regime wishes to break the shackles of over-regulation of her business sector. However, the regime has made it clear that it will not de-centralize her government structures, nor veer from the path toward his "people's socialist Jamahirya".

The regime celebrated its 35th anniversary of its overthrow of the legitimate ruler, King Idriss on September 1st. During the celebration, Kadhafi made public his intention to have foreign oil companies bid for offshore drilling rights. But he also will not disband his "people's committees", and has not named his successor.

So it seems that Libya is taking the same path that was blazed by Red China under Deng Xiaoping, then under Castro's Cuba, and most recently - in very tiny steps - North Korea. Communist or Socialist regimes, wishing to stay alive, allow some much-needed reform of their economic structure. But it is just enough to keep money flowing in. They officially refuse to abandon Socialism or Communism, and refuse basic political freedoms we had in the West, but are surely losing.

Yet, it is nothing new. Under the old Soviet Union, their first dictator Lenin instigated the so-called New Economic Plan (NEP) to bring foreign money and investment into Russia when their attempts in imposing Communism upon Russia bore poison fruit. So, old tricks, new disguise.

Libya will not be free until the Kadhafi regime is throw out by moral and peaceful means, replaced with a government friendly to or openly Distributist. Returning the Royal Family to their rightful place as "head of the household" wouldn't be bad either.

But let Libyans learn of the Distributism of Belloc, Chesterton and their legitimate successors first. Then let them apply it to their unique circumstances, and then things will get better. It make take time, but they will get better.

If Rome wasn't built in a day, neither will a free and Distributist Libya. But that is no excuse to start building it today.

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Alas For Kampuchea!

According to a report from the globalist leftist Associated Press - written September 6th on the Yahoo Business section - Cambodia {also known as Kampuchea} has voted to join the infamous World Trade Organization (WTO). It would become the 148th member of this trade counterpart to the equally infamous UN.

Fifty of the 61 members of Cambodia's Senate voted to ratify the agreement. The current government of Prime Minister Hun Sen hopes that WTO membership will help protect their garment industry, which has been a mainstay of economic growth. The female-dominated industry provides four-fifths of the nation's exports.

This will only prove ill, in the long run, for Cambodia. They will slowly but surely lose their economic independence, then their political independence. The WTO, an adjunct of the UN, is doing the same to America and the nations of the so-called European Union. America will suffer even further if the so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is passed by the US government.

And according to the latest issue of the Phnom Penh Post, heads of small and medium-sized businesses are fearful of going out of business thanks to WTO trade rules. They point to India, where many small enterprises - including rice milling, brick making, creation of spare parts and local electricity production - folded because of fair market access in other nations. A group of these business owners went to Bangalore, India to meet with their counterparts there, so as to learn new strategies to cope with life under WTO rules -- that is, if it is possible.

Distributism believes in fair trade, not the so-called "free trade" that globalists promote. It also believes in "trade minimalism", trading for what one aboslutely needs to keep an economy going, as well as staying on friendly economic terms with other nations. Tariffs should always remain flexible, neither too high - so as to avoid a "trade war" - nor too low, which harms domestic producers.

For those who can buy it, I suggest reading up on Hilaire Belloc's work Economics For Helen, specifically it's section on trade.

For those in Cambodia who may read this blog, let what happened today spur you on to get Cambodia out of the WTO - and the UN - and help your nation become Distributist.

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Mexico Versus Wal-Mart

This report from the San Diego Union -Tribune of September 3rd tells of a lonely struggle by a small band of activists fighting the building of a Wal-Mart a half-mile away from some of Mexico's oldest ruins.

According to the report by Mark Stevenson, a majority of the mostly poor folks in their area approve of Wal-Mart's entrance into their neighborhood. Why? The attraction of the materialist American lifestyle and lower prices than the small shops in the area. The activists lost a similar battle against a Costco in a nearby town. The activsts - the "Front to Defend the Teotihuacan Valley" - are asking for outside help to assist in stopping Wal-Mart.

At the very least, readers of this blog should pray for the activists and the people in that area. The Front should also be taught about Distributism, and apply it to their particular circumstances. The poor will be better served, and drawn away from the seductive darkness that is socialism and communism. Also, the small shops will have good advocates outside their valley, and the poor educated against the lure of cheap goods and prison-labor made junk.

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Update On Maoist Rebellion

On July 31st, I reported on how Maoist Communists were wrecking the Indian Sub-Continent with their rebellions and terror. Well, things in Nepal are getting worse. Since the enthronement of their new King, there has been a rise in total misery for that poor nation. And the last month has hit Nepal hard like a punch in the stomach.

On the heels of the Maoist rebels ending their blockade of the capital, the government had to impose a curfew after rioting erupted over the deaths of 12 Nepalis by Iraqi kidnappers.

The current government is hoping for peace talks with the Maoist rebels, but according to the BBC, the head of the Nepali Maoists said that won't happen. They still aim to replace the monarchy with a Maoist Communist state. They complain of caste prejudice and lack of help for the poor as the main spurs to action and terror.

But Nepal's problems will not be solved by the nation becoming another Communist state, nor helping fellow Maoist rebels in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Let them learn about Distributism, as well as bring in the Gospel and end the caste system, and Nepal will have a better chance of survival.

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