Let’s Do Our Part

Written By James Little

Defend Our Federal Funds from OMB Power Grab

HERE add your comment to the Federal Register and spread the word to others.

Join us for a Zoom Call on Thursday, July 2nd at 7PM.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87951437062

Meeting ID: 879 5143 7062

250 to 250 Substack, Heather Cox Richardson

The Annotated Encyclical on AI, Pope Leo

For AI to respect human dignity and truly serve the common good, responsibility must be clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions. … It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required.

At this point, however, a subtle temptation may emerge, namely the thought that the problems are too big and we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, cannot make a difference. This is a polite form of resignation, often disguised as realism. Certainly, not everyone has the same power to make a difference. There are those who govern, make investment decisions, lead institutions, conduct research, educate, produce or provide information, and then there are those who only seem to live their daily lives. Yet, no one is without responsibility. We all have our own areas for action, and it is precisely there — and nowhere else — that we must choose whether to fuel the mentality of force (even if only through indifference, cynicism, lies or hatred), or to preserve the mindset of peace (with truth, moderation, closeness and care).

The twentieth-century Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, in the words of a protagonist in one of his novels, described our responsibility in this way: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization. For this reason, it is worthwhile pausing to reflect on some aspects of how we, each in our own way, can cooperate in building the civilization of love. Without presuming to exhaust this theme, I would like to propose five paths toward daily and public responsibility: the need to disarm words, building peace through justice, adopting the perspective of victims, cultivating a healthy realism and reviving dialogue and multilateralism.

Billionaires Funding The Midterms, Washington Post

This is obscene because of the Supreme Court’s unconstitutional and absurd decision to equate unlimited corporate spending on political campaigns with the free speech rights of living citizens. It fuels oligarchy and, ultimately, tyranny as our representative democracy continues to erode.

Trump Family Corruption, Paul Krugman

How did we so quickly descend into becoming a truly massively corrupt country on a level that we used to think of as being associated only with tinpot dictators in the third world? And yet here we are. … This is illegal up the wazoo. …

500 Days of Trump Corruption, Senator Chris Murphy

Over the last year and a half, our president, Donald Trump, has turned the White House into a 24/7 corruption operation. This is a national crisis, and we should start acting like it. The president's goal is to engage in so much corruption, so much self-enrichment, to hand out so many favors to his friends, his family, and his political allies, that it just becomes the pitter-patter of rain, it's normal, it's constant, it's never-ending. Trump's bet is that if there's a new story of corruption, of self-dealing, every few days, that the press will stop covering it, or the public will just stop paying attention. … No president has done 5% of the self-dealing that Donald Trump has done in the last year and a half.

James Little
Next

Let’s Do This!