“BERKSHARES” GOING STRONG

This article, dated February 25th, is written by Stephanie Sy for America’s ABC NEWS.

The “BerkShares” alternative currency program, which the Review reported on last September, is going strong. Over US$800,000 in these notes are circulating within participating stores and banks in the southern Berkshire mountains of Western Massachusetts. Accepted at 225 businesses in the area, the popularity is growing.

The governing board behind BerkShares have a long-term goal of making loans of the alternative currency to companies just starting business. They hope it will spur growth of small-scale manufacturing and develop the local economy even further.

Even better, as Ms. Sy reports, a Brooklyn, NY-based black history professor would like to transplant this “BerkShares” system to help minority-owned businesses in poor areas of the country.

This is an excellent effort to bring Distributism to local region. In areas of feeble economic activity, this “supplemental currency” can help local businesses to flourish.

Any Review readers interested in bringing such an effort to your community should contact “BerkShares” for more information.

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UZBEK FARMERS LEARN HOW TO CO-OP

This article, dated February 21st, comes from the business website UzReport.com.

The former Soviet Central Asian republic is still learning how to begin and grow their own small businesses, farms and small Western-style cooperatives. So with grants from - God help us all! - the United Nations Development Plan and the EU, education and business plans are being promoted to encourage local economic growth. Already successful in two regions of the country, a third region is now targeted to begin helping farmers to start micro businesses, as well as use local resources to fix and restore the regional infrastructure.

The nation has long suffered from Communist tyranny, and the residue of it still needs to be purged. But this effort is a major step in doing so by promoting private enterprise unconnected with multinational conglomerates. It is a big step toward a Distributist Uzbekistan and should be prayed for and supported. It will bring greater economic and social stability to this part of the world and reduce the temptation to crime and terrorism.

Congratulations to the Uzbeks and keep up the good work!

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WISCONSIN FARMERS UNITE FOR CO-OP HEALTH CARE

This article, dated February 22nd, comes from the Appleton Post-Crescent of Appleton, Wisconsin.

Eighteen percent of Wisconsin dairy farmers are without health insurance. Many more who grow food in that state are in a similar situation. A program set up by the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives (WFC) aims to solve this problem by providing an insurance plans for these farmers. Recent laws passed by the state government opened the door for this unique plan.

When government sometimes does things right for a change, it deserves praise. So credit is due to Jim Doyle and the Wisconsin legislature and the WFC for giving their farmers a leg up in getting health insurance. It is pro-Distributist in nature and deserves our thanks.

Now if only something like this can be done for other Americans in their home states by their own resources, without both the Socialists and “Big Medicine” supporters in Washington DC messing things up.

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GOOD CO-OP NEWS FROM MALTA

This unnamed article from the Malta Independent reports on plans to host a March conference on improving cooperatives in the tiny island nation.

Parliamentary Secretary Edwin Vassallo praised the growing cooperative sector in Malta, which has 54 of them operating in different fields from agriculture to media. He claimed that “cooperatives could be adapted to suit the needs of any sector, and could be applied to any commercial activity.”

Cooperatives are a part of a vibrant, working Distributist economy. We at the Review wish success for the upcoming conference as a vital step toward a Distributist future for their country.

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Bright Future For Cheap Solar Power

Distributism believes in de-centralized energy production. Solar power has, up to know, been impractical and expensive for the majority of people. But as this report from the London Telegraph observes, there is a material being researched that may drastically cut the price of solar power by as early as 2009.

Let us hope, God willing, that this will be so.

In addition, this is the beginning of Traditional Lent for we Catholics. We at the Review wish you all a Happy Ash Wednesday.

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In Zimbabwe, No Bread For The Poor

“Bread is now so expensive that only the rich can afford to eat it.”

Thus comments a picture caption sent via the controversial reporter Jan Lamprecht on the equally controversial website Rense.com regarding Zimbabwe’s downward spiral.

Following that is a report from the pro-globalist BBC about the neo-Marxist dictatorship of Robert Mugabe. As readers of the Review know, we are against all forms of Marxism, contrary to what our Libertarian and neo-conservative detractors may think. No one would want to support a regime that now suffers from the world’s highest yearly inflation rate -- 1,593%!

And still neither the West nor the East will left a finger to get rid of this tyranny.

The West won’t because they don’t want the accusation of “racism” and “neo-colonialism” thrown at them.

The East won’t because they don’t attack their fellow Marxists in their quest for “global proletarian revolution”.

So along with the Fatima Consecration, Zimbabwe’s best hope is implementing Distributist principles into their country. De-centralizing their government and businesses from the ground-up. Protecting the traditional and extended family and fighting the Sexual Revolution in all it’s forms. Fixing their currency to - if possible - a multiple commodity basis. Exiting the UN, WTO, World Bank and African Union for good.

The insights that Belloc, Chesterton and their legitimate successors discovered can only help that poor nation. It can only suffer needlessly - and endlessly - if it does otherwise.

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"Athanasius" Strikes Back

The intrepid "Athanasius" of the weblog Athanasius Contra Mundum continues his discussion with another blogger over Distributism vs. Capitalism.

In this third part of the ongoing dialogue, he quotes extensively from Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, one of the five "key works" of Distributist Thought. There is also talk about the medieval European guilds.

His weblog is anything but boring. Enjoy this next part of this series, and let him know you read about it from the Review. And thank you.

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Virginia Cabbies Go Co-op

This report, dated February 7th, is written by Michael Lee Pope for the Virginia-based Alexandria Gazette. It was posted in the news section of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives‘ website.

In 1982, city officials of Alexandria created a regulation restricting cab drivers from transferring to a company of their choice. According to the drivers, this ordinance gave the company owners all the power over them. So starting in 2001, they began public protests against this ordinance with help from a member of the City Council.

After four years of bureaucratic wrangling and negotiations, the 1982 regulations were revised and humanized. On New Year’s Day 2007, the Union Cab Co. began operations under the new regulations. It is the city’s first ever worker-owned and managed cab car cooperative, perhaps the first in Virginian history. Morale is high among the co-op’s driver-owners and the future looks bright.

This is Distributism in action on the local and urban level. The cab drivers own and operate their own company, giving much needed competition to their bigger rivals. Furthermore, the city government responded to enough pressure to change things for the better. Government operates best when it is the closest to the voters.

So contrary to what our Capitalist and Socialist detractors claim, Distributism DOES work in cities and towns as well as the countryside.

Congratulations to the driver-owners of Alexandria’s Union Cab Company and their families. God grant that you prosper.

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Small Biorefineries On the Horizon

This report, dated February 13th, is from J. C. Winnie writing for the left-wing environmental blog After Gutenberg.

His fellow blogger, under the name “TreeHugger”, wrote of a new project that would help turn garbage to energy on a small scale. Called a “tactical biorefinery”, this U.S. Army funded project would turn organic waste and garbage into energy. It’s expected that big farms will be the big users of these refineries, but they have potential for small scale use.

They have potential to reduce garbage amounts and generate electricity. Winnie and “TreeHugger” are cynical about this development, complaining that Federal dollars should have been used to develop more “green technology”. They are wrong to be cynical. With America being one of the world’s biggest importers of oil, the country needs to create new sources of fuel and energy generation. Better we have this for the general public than not at all. If they disagree, shame on them.

De-centralization is a key tenet of Distributist Thought. It applies as much to energy generation as to other areas of society. Greater and more localized energy generation, as well as conservation, will only benefit a future Distributist America - and that includes these “tactical biorefineries”.

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Bolivian Mine Tax Hurts Mining Co-ops

This report, dated February 7th, is written by Dorothy Kosich for the precious metals website Mineweb.net.

The neo-Marxist regime in Bolivia, headed by Chavez ally Evo Morales, wants to increase a tax levied on all foreign mining companies. The tax hike, however, would also effect independent small miners, of whom 55,000 belong to mining co-operatives.

Over 20,000 miners protested in La Paz the capital on February 6th.

Distributism respects co-operatives, which form a vital part of a de-centralized economy. What the Morales regime is doing is wrong and must be opposed in a vigorous manner.

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Red China's Pollution Puzzle

This report - dated February 1st - is written by Andreas Lorenz and Wieland Wagner for the German establishment media weekly magazine Der Spiegel.

Communist China is hailed as the "workshop of the world" by the globalists and their allies in multinational business. It is also one of the world's most notorious polluters.

As Lorenz and Wagner report, the Marxist superpower adds a new coal-fired plant every seven to ten days. Her grasslands near the Mongolian border have become deserts and are expanding. The Mekong River, which has it's sources in China, has been dammed for hydroelectric power and is affecting rice and fish crops in Thailand and Cambodia. The Yangtze River, as famous as Russia's Volga or America's Mississippi, is dead in many spots thanks to ecological damage.

There is now greater emphasis on using alternative energy in China's energy mix. Many officials and politicians are waking up to the need for reversing the devastation to land, water and air. But the Chinese Communist Party view environmental issues as secondary matters. Their goal, along with staying in power and promting Marxism, is ensuring "modest prosperity" to their vast majority of poor people.

As Lorenz and Wagner note, pollution problems ruin 8%-10% of China's yearly gross domestic product. And over 400,000 Chinese die yearly from pollution-related problems.

So long as Communism holds sway in the Land of the Dragon, these disasters will never go away. A truly free China, learning about and practicing Distributism, will benefit from small-scale production and "green technologies". Until then, the "workshop of the world" will continue to poison the world's ecology.

And we will never stop suffering from it.

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Fighting the "Global Warming" Deception

As mentioned in past posts on this weblog, The Distributist Review rejects the theories of "Peak Oil" and "global warming" as globalist-inspired hoaxes. This essay by Dr. Timothy Ball Ph. D., Canada's first climatologist, tells of the price he has paid - and continues to pay - for speaking out against the media campaign favoring "global warming".

Originally posted in the Canada Free Press, it is reposted on the news and opinion website Prison Planet.

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Zimbabwe Bank Chief Admits Disaster

From the controversial news and opinion website Rense.com comes the latest weekly e-mail from Cathy Buckle in Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia.

Dr. Gideon Gono, governor of the nation's Reserve Bank, confessed in a two hour public speech what - in other nations - would have gotten him killed. Gono revealed in detail how the country's nomenklatura robbed the poor and middle classes with worthless money-making schemes. They ranged from gold and diamond smuggling to fuel racketeering to bilking the neo-Marxist regime for seed and fertilizers for unproductive farms.

But in the end, Gono admitted, there would be no change in monetary policy. There couldn't be unless approved by the Mugabe dictatorship. And there is no likelihood of that happening soon.

Zimbabwe's troubles will have no end until the Fatima Consecration is done as Our Lady commanded, and the current neo-Marxist agenda is trashed in favor of Distributism.

Centralizing economic and political power into the hands of the few is a recipe for disaster. When Distributism takes root and flourishes in Zimbabwe, things will be much better.

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