Biden remains steady before the storm.

July 24, 2023

          My wife and I have just returned safely from our mountain adventure to a news landscape that seems to be holding its breath for indictments to come in the next four weeks. Amidst the never-before-in-the-history-of-our-nation atmosphere, President Biden continues to demonstrate steady, experienced leadership. But first, what about me?

You are not seeing double!

          I hope everyone noticed that Friday’s newsletter repeated the entire text of the newsletter after “Concluding Thoughts.” Here’s the story, worth telling because it shows how much I am devoted to our common cause! I wrote Friday’s newsletter from the cab of my pickup truck while sitting on the shoulder of a mountain road where I was hanging onto a neighbor’s satellite internet service (with permission).

          I write the newsletter in Word, then copy and paste it into Substack. Because of latency in the satellite feed, I “copied and pasted” the text of Friday’s newsletter once. Nothing happened (or so I thought). I copied and pasted a second time, and I saw the text appear in Substack as expected. I failed to notice that it appeared twice because I was in a hurry. I had promised my long-suffering Managing Editor that I would be back to our cabin “in a few minutes”—a promise she knew I would not keep (but she nonetheless graciously responded, “Okay, don’t stay out past dark!”).

          What’s the moral of the story? There are many, but none of them make me look good. Have at it!

Joe Biden secures agreement from tech leaders re artificial intelligence safeguards.

          In a significant story that is getting very little attention, Joe Biden met with tech and social media leaders to discuss rudimentary safeguards on artificial intelligence. Biden met with Meta (Facebook), Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Chat GPT, and Open AI (among others.) The agreements include third-party testing of AI security and analysis for societal harm such as discrimination and bias. See AP, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft and other tech firms agree to AI safeguards set by the White House.

          The agreements are significant because they represent a voluntary first step by leading tech companies to allow limited third-party analysis of the safety and security of AI. Are the agreements enough? Absolutely not! But they are a start, and they recognize the role and responsibility of government in protecting Americans from harm from artificial intelligence programs.

          Sara Morrison of Vox explained that Biden’s tentative first steps could be significant, nonetheless. See Vox, Biden sure seems serious about not letting AI get out of control. As Morrison explains,

Among the full list of commitments are a few meaningful things. The companies will do extensive security testing and share information about managing AI risks, and cybersecurity will be a priority to protect themselves and their products from hackers. Meanwhile, they’ll develop systems — a watermark, for example — that let users know when content has been generated by AI.

          Morrison notes that the administration has an executive order in the works but that Congress must regulate the field. Until it does, Joe Biden is plugging away, doing Congress’s job as best he can until the first branch of government can organize itself to get something done. Or should that be “get anything done”?

President Biden to name national monument for Emmet Till and his mother.

          The brutal torture and murder of Emmett Till followed by his mother’s decision to hold an “open casket” funeral changed America. In 1955, a young Black teenager, Emmett Till, was abducted and killed because a white woman accused Till of “whistling” at her and grabbing her wrist. (The woman later recanted the accusations during an interview for a book.) Till’s nearly unrecognizable body was pulled from a river, where it was weighted with a 75-pound cotton gin fan secured to his neck by barbed wire. Nearly 250,000 people walked past his casket, and hundreds of thousands more saw photos of Till’s mutilated body in his casket.

          Two white men were charged with the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. The defendants confessed to the crime a few months later in an interview given to Look Magazine—for which they were paid $4,000, a hefty sum in 1956. Having been previously acquitted, they could not be tried again for murder because of the Constitution’s double jeopardy prohibition.

          Emmett Till’s murder and his mother’s bravery in holding an open-casket funeral galvanized the nascent civil rights movement and helped to inspire a generation of civil rights leaders, including Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. On Monday, President Biden announced that he is declaring three sites as a national monument to Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley. See NYTimes, Biden to Name National Monument for Emmett Till and His Mother. (This article is accessible to all.)

          President Biden’s actions come at a moment of renewed overt racism in America. Florida’s new history curriculum includes prompts asking students to consider ways in which slavery “benefitted” enslaved persons by giving them skills they could use after emancipation. See Florida’s State Academic Standards—Social Studies, 2023. The linked document includes the following “benchmark” standard (on page 6):

Benchmark Clarifications:

Clarification 1: Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.

          The proposed “benchmark clarification” is a stunning revision to an institution where white owners profited from forced labor by enslaved persons. To suggest that any part of that forced labor was “beneficial” is a cruel and dishonest whitewashing of a vile institution. But Ron DeSantis nonetheless defended a “pro-slavery” curriculum that his culture war unleashed in Florida. See The Independent, DeSantis defends Florida curriculum that suggests slaves benefited from forced labor.

          But the Academic Standards linked above are far worse than the media portrays. The issue is not a single snippet—the language quoted above—it is the entire approach to teaching the history of slavery in the United States. I invite you to review pages 5 through 10 of the Academic Standards, and you will discover that much of the curriculum is devoted to describing slavery in Africa, Europe, and Asia—apparently to make the disgusting point that “everyone else was doing it.” For example, the “benchmark clarifications” on page 9 include the following:

Benchmark Clarifications:

Clarification 1: Instruction includes how trading in slaves developed in African lands (e.g., Benin, Dahomey).

Clarification 2: Instruction includes the practice of the Barbary Pirates in kidnapping Europeans and selling them into slavery in Muslim countries (i.e., Muslim slave markets in North Africa, West Africa, Swahili Coast, Horn of Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Indian Ocean slave trade).

Clarification 3: Instruction includes how slavery was utilized in Asian cultures (e.g., Sumerian law code, Indian caste system).

Clarification 4: Instruction includes the similarities between serfdom and slavery and emergence of the term “slave” in the experience of Slavs.

Clarification 5: Instruction includes how slavery among indigenous peoples of the Americas was utilized prior to and after European colonization.

          All of the above smacks of a white-racist defense of slavery in the US. Thankfully, Joe Biden is resisting the effort by the right to erase America’s shameful history of slavery and Jim Crow laws that enforced a system of apartheid for nearly a century after the Civil War.

The choice in 2024.

          I attended a meeting of a grassroots organization on Sunday evening. (More on that in Concluding Thoughts.) After I made a few remarks, I answered questions from the attendees. One question related to the seeming difficulty Democrats have in putting together a consistent, positive message. (Whenever I meet with grassroots groups, I always get some version of that question.) So tonight, because of our late arrival home from our cabin and my appearance at the grassroots meeting, I will borrow liberally from reader Bob Morgan, who publishes his own Substack blog. [Random Thoughts | Bob Morgan].

          Last week, Bob published a piece entitled, On the Ballot in 2024, in which he distills the choices on the 2024 ballot. He writes:

If you value:

• Women's reproductive freedom

• Governmental action, not theatrics

• Climate crisis reversal

• Election integrity

• Law and order

• Responsible gun ownership

• Responsible investment in technology, infrastructure, education

• Decency and dignity in the Office of the President

• Moderation and bipartisanship in your president

• Cabinet level leadership with qualifications and integrity

• Holding a president accountable under the law

• Supreme Court ethics

• Continued economic recovery from COVID

• Global stability and NATO solidarity

• Responsible and equitable deficit reduction

. . . then the Democratic Party is for you.

If you value:

• Constant chaos

• Destruction of long-standing, vital institutions and laws

• Safe harbor for bigotry, fascism, authoritarianism

• No prosecution for criminals who perpetrated crimes against our nation, and pardons for those already found guilty

• Government gridlock and endless, needless, and pointless investigations

• Rising deficits

• Tax relief for the wealthy subsidized by the middle class

• Culture of cheating

. . . then today’s Republican Party is for you.

Well said, Bob!

Concluding Thoughts.

          On Sunday evening, my wife and I attended a meeting of “Swing Left West Valley”. The group meets about three miles from our home, so Jill and I joined the meeting of a dozen hearty volunteers in person.

          As always, the experience was humbling and inspiring. It was 92 degrees and humid at 7:00 PM in the San Fernando Valley. But a dozen volunteers sat outside under a shade tree writing “get out the vote letters” for the special election in Ohio on August 8th. [Remember, VOTE NO on Issue 1.] The group’s leader, Sienna G., was organized and upbeat in her appeals to the group to join future phone banking and canvassing events (in California’s 27th Congressional District.) Jill and I were so inspired we are joining the group!

          Anyone viewing the event would be filled with hope. The group was diverse in terms of age, gender, and ethnicity. So far as I could tell, the only thing that drew the group together was a passion for protecting our democracy. Strangers joining in a common cause! Now imagine that scene playing out tens of thousands of times across America. Friends, neighbors, and strangers coming together in one state to urge voters in another state to protect reproductive liberty.

          Would such an event have happened in 2015? No. But it is a daily occurrence in America in 2023. Much has changed in seven years, but the most critical change has been the change in us. We understand the threat to democracy and are willing to step outside our comfort zones to do something about it--on a busy Sunday evening that was forecast to be 102 degrees (a cloud cover mercifully lowered the expected temperature!). While Democrats are rallying at the grassroots in backyards across America, Republicans are relying on dark money and deceptive advertising to curtail democracy in Ohio.

          While we cannot take anything for granted, it is a sucker’s bet to wager against Americans seeking to preserve freedom. As my wife and I drove away from a group of twelve volunteers sitting in a backyard in the San Fernando Valley, my faith in the great American experiment was again renewed.

          Thank you to Swing Left West Valley and to every volunteer defending the promises of the Constitution. You are truly faithful servants of democracy, and our nation is in your debt. Keep up the good work! United, we cannot fail!

          Talk to you tomorrow!