These last few weeks have shown us in fairly stark contrast what the two major political parties see, want, and hope for, both in November and beyond. Their respective conventions—which I admittedly could only tolerate/consume small portions of—spoke volumes to those who would care to listen.

In short, each side sees the other are duplicitous, evil, and as a threat to the very fabric of this nation…and from where I sit, they’re both right.

However, the problem, IMO, wasn’t these two conventions, but rather, the Constitutional Convention. Yes, the one in 1787. That’s where the nexus of the problems arose. Because both of today’s political parties pick and choose when to take the Constitution literally, and when to take it logically, as in, “updated for modern interpretation.” More on this later.

I read Thomas Edsall’s NY Times opinion piece entitled “I Fear That are Witnessing the End of American Democracy as we Know it” the other day. Touching article, well-written. But I disagree whole-heartedly with the title. We’re not witnessing the end of American Democracy—we’re re-witnessing the beginning of American Democracy, all over again! https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/opinion/trump-republican-convention-racism.html

For example, the Electoral College was a concession to the South to get them to agree to whole notion of a Constitution (to replace the obviously dysfunctional stop-gap—the Articles of Confederation). The “EC” (and its corresponding clincher, the 3/5ths Compromise) gave the South way more representative power than the North wanted to concede to it—for example, Virginia wound up with 12 Electors out of the 46 total Electoral College votes. But the EC was a means to an end. It got everyone to sign off. In fact, the framers had no idea that the EC would actually produce a winner, and figured that, once the EC failed to do so, the House of Representatives would actually select the President. That was the plan! (And it has happened , but not since 1824.) This whole EC idea was supposed to be a concession to get things started, and then the “real” decision would come from those few, wealthy, powerful White men who were already elected to Congress (via one vote per state, but you get the point). This was before political parties even existed, and before there was any reason to believe that only two main candidates would be competing for the position. To be clear, to this day, the rules say that the Electoral College gets one shot at deciding the winner, and that if no one person has the clear majority of EC votes, then the House gets to (s)elect the President.

So that brings me back to the notion of literal versus modern interpretation of the Constitution, and the Declaration of independence. That whole preamble thingy, you know, the “We the People…a more perfect Union…and the Declaration’s opening, “We hold these truths…all MEN were created equal”…yadda-yadda. Who do you think they were referring to? And that annoying Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights, with its “right to bear arms.” What are we to make of these phrases? Well, like that book that many of you refer to as “The Bible,” (clearly it is, at best, A Bible, not The Bible, but more on that another time), you can find whatever you’re looking for!

So, if you’re a Right-wing, Trump-ist/Republican, you can find solace in the literal interpretation of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” among other things. So, yeah, you can point your AK-47 at a group of Black Lives Matter protesters, because, you know, the 2^nd Amendment says it’s okay. But does it make any sense at all that protection of the ownership of the muskets and bayonets of 1787 were meant as guarantees that we can buy AK-47s, Uzis, or “bump-stocks” for the semi-automatic weapons of 2020?! Of course not. The 1^st Amendment guarantees me freedom of peaceable assembly, which one could argue, means that I can “peaceably assemble” by any means of transportation I choose, no? But that doesn’t mean that it’s against the Constitution to require me to have a driver’s license, or to post speed limits, or to require me to have liability insurance on my car, does it? Those impositions on my right to peaceably assemble seem reasonable now, right? Because we understand that the technology has increased so dramatically that it makes no sense to apply 18^th-century transportation realities to 21^st-century transportation. But I mean, literally, maybe it does mean that requiring driver’s licenses violates my 1^st Amendment rights, but no one is making that argument, are they?

At the same time, though, the literal interpretation of “All men are created equal,” which modern-day Democrats hold onto as justification for treating everyone fairly, was clearly not what the 1776 document had in mind. They didn’t mean to include: women, Blacks, Native Americans (a term that didn’t even exist back then, btw), etc. No, they meant Wealthy White Men…period! And the modern-day Republicans mean what the Founders meant!

So, did Black Lives Matter “back in the day” when these documents were written? Um, not so much. Like I said (and you well know) only three-fifths of each Black person was counted for purposes of: the Electoral College, House representation and resource allocation, but of course, none of us (Blacks) could actually vote or be elected to, you know, represent ourselves, anyway, so, whatever. And how many of today’s Republicans do you think would vote against re-implementing anything in this paragraph? I mean, as I’ve mentioned before, it was only 20 years ago that Alabama voted to allow inter-racial marriage…by a vote of 59-to-41! (Hey, if a law re-instituting slavery was on the ballot this year, what would you think the results would be, especially in the South? Asking for a friend…)

So, who’s right and who’s wrong? Should we listen to what the Founders said, or what they meant? We are the nation that said “All men are created equal,” but really only meant it for Wealthy White men. Maybe, what we really need is another Constitutional Convention! Maybe we need to require one ever 100 years if not sooner, in order to reflect the actual, applicable realities of the technology, the demographics, the economics, and the international environment we find ourselves in. And hey, if this “American Experiment” isn’t working, maybe it’s time to move on! Why should we assume that this enormous nation, which came to be by the quasi-genocidal elimination of its original occupants (the modern-day Canaanites, Hittites, etc?), is somehow “guaranteed” in perpetuity? If we can’t get enough of us to agree on the direction we should move in—if we can’t get enough of us to agree on whether we should follow what our Founders said, versus what some of us would like to think they meant, then maybe it’s time to say, in the words of the NFL, “upon further review, the ruling on the field (of the Civil War) is over-turned!” (The South will not be charged with a timeout…y’all can go!)

What say ye?

So, I know that some of you are less than thrilled with Biden’s VP choice. I hear you. I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I hear you. Senator Harris is not exactly a bastion of Liberal/Progressive excess (despite the Right’s whining). Neither is Mr. Biden, for that matter. Hey, I wanted Senator Warren to be atop the ticket from the giddy-up! But it is what it is. Frankly, I’m not as disappointed as some of you seem to be with this ticket. It’s not as exciting as 1960, 1992, or 2008, mind you, but we could’ve done a whole lot worse. (We already are, remember!)

So, the Short Game is easy. There is only one mission for November—win the Triple Crown! Take back the White House and the Senate, and retain the House. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS! (Well, yes, clearly the Census matters, too.) If Bugs Bunny and Daffy-Damned-Duck have “Ds” next to their names in your state on the Senate and House lines, you’d better be a Warner-Brothers/Looney-Tunes-votin’-for-so-and-so…period!

Why? Because of the Long Game. For everyone who is saying that Biden-Harris is not Progressive enough…well, you’re correct. But tell me, are they more or less Progressive than the alternative? Obviously I’m not the first or only one to make this point, but I’m going to make it nonetheless. The Progressive wing will be the foundation of the Dems victories in November, make no mistake. And those who ride that wave won’t forget it…we won’t LET them forget it this time! But there are still votes/voters in the middle who we cannot afford to lose to the other side. If picking a Progressive VP costs us the race, what was the point? Now, I’m not saying that it necessarily would have cost us the race, just that it’s a risk I can see the logic in avoiding. Because we have simply got to win the Triple Crown, and the best chance of that happening is with us taking the center of the board. (There’s a reason why “Pawn to King 4” is the first move of most well-played chess matches, and why 3-on-2 fast breaks in hoops, soccer and hockey prefer to put the ball/puck in the hands of the person in the middle.)

What we have to remember is that the other side plays to win! They’ll do whatever it takes. Because they’ve had their eyes on the Long Game since even before Roe-v-Wade, but damn sure ever since it. While we always try to “play fair.” Well, I’m sick of losing fairly! I want to win, by any means necessary. Because I think this year is that important, and I know you do, too.

So, yes, we’ll have somewhat of a Centrist ticket at the top, because that’s the surest road to victory. But once we win the Triple Crown, it’s time to take off the Nice Guy hat and get down to business. And we on the Progressive flank will have to raise our voices just as loudly as if we had lost, until we get the attention of those we just helped put in office. On ALL of the issues: climate change, gun control legislation, immigration, health care reform, reproductive rights, minimum wage increases, tax code revisions, campaign finance reform, de-funding the police state, equal pay for women, or even LONGER-Game plays, like, increasing the size of the Supreme Court, or removing the Electoral College, yadda-yadda-yadda, we need to make sure that the people WE put in office, are accountable to US.

Whether it’s AOC, or Senator Warren, or Senator Booker, or Stacey Abrams, or Julian Castro, etc, etc, I want to see Progressives in the Cabinet, and at the forefront of every decision-making conversation. And I want to see the perps who will be leaving office, prosecuted! No more of this nonsense about a peaceful transfer of power; these people were the most corrupt Administration in US history! There has to be a price to pay for that, as a means of discouraging anyone in the future from trying that BS again! Due process, sure, but I’m talking about: taxes disclosed, subpoenas enforced, NDAs absolved, pardons rescinded…the whole nine yards. We deserve the truth, and if there’s been no crimes, well, then there was no need to hide behind the shroud of secrecy, was there? If we don’t do these things, what will deter anyone from pulling this same type of scam in 2024 or beyond? 45, Barr, Flynn, Stone, etc, need to be under investigation before onset of Spring 2021. And we need to make it clear that we won’t settle for anything less.

From where I sit, that’s sounds like just about the bare minimum we should ask for in exchange for us getting behind a less-than-Progressive ticket. We just don’t have to ask for it out loud…yet.

In baseball, as well as other places, August is sometimes referred to as “the dog days of summer.” The implication is that it’s especially hot and humid, the days themselves are long, and they somehow seem to drag on and on, making us weary. Personally, I couldn’t disagree more. First of all, warm weather is a blessing…period. If I never see snow again in life it’ll be fine with me, so, no complaints here about the heat. I want to enjoy every single day of summer, folks. Don’t try to short-change me with the whole “summer’s (almost) over” nonsense. We’ve got a whole month, maybe 6 weeks left of summer, and I will have a smile on my face for every single wonderfully-warm day!

Second, the days are actually getting shorter, as they do all summer. Yes, the first day of summer is the longest day of the year, so, do the math. So, not so much with the dragging on of long days. Days (as in, daytime, when the Sun is out) are shorter in August than in July, guys. Get over yourselves.

Third, NFL football training camps are getting into full swing in August (even this year, apparently, but certainly in years past). And what’s better than football? Nothing. So, August has got that going for it.

But also, August’s are times when people aren’t paying such close attention to things. These “dog days” are times when stories can be hidden from the public’s watchful eyes, if we’re not careful.

Here are a few I’m going to try to stay on top of:

According to a NY Times article from July 31st, American Ambassador to Brazil, Todd Chapman, has been accused of telling Brazil’s President, Jair Bolsonaro, that Brazil can “help get President Trump re-elected by changing their trade policies.” The article states that Iowa, in particular, would be likely to go Trump’s way if he’s able to announce a lifting of Brazil’s ethanol tariffs before the November election. Seriously?! That seems a little blatant, even for “45,” no? Yeah, I’ll be keeping an eye on that’un. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/world/americas/brazil-trump-ethanol-chapman.html

Market Watch (among others) reported a story that has got to be kept in focus–attempts by the White House (specifically, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy) to reduce if not close, various parts/services/offices of the US Postal Service: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/postal-service-may-close-offices-cut-service-ahead-of-election-2020-07-29 Calling it an “operational pivot,” DeJoy has ordered reductions in overtime, service cuts, and outright closures. In a year where CoVid will make voting in person extremely difficult, if not downright dangerous, why on Earth would anyone who wants to see a free and fair election think it prudent to reduce the availability and effectiveness of the US Postal Service?!…Exactly!

Another NY Times story also caught my eye yesterday. It was about a type of colorless glass that the Ancient Romans called “Alexandria Glass,” which was considered to be the of the highest-quality, and that Rome was incapable of creating on its own. And just where did this mysterious, ahead-of-its-time, prized possession originate from? Why, Egypt, of course, just like so many other things that the Greco-Roman originators of Western Thought are “credited” for. (Why was Socrates put to death by the state again? Oh yeah, for “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges” and for “introducing new deities.” And whose “new deities” were those, exactly? This, after Socrates had been studying in Egypt for 15 years…just sayin’.) What does Alexandria Glass have to do with Socrates? And what does any of that have to do with Western Society in 2020? Perhaps nothing…or perhaps everything. As Rachel Maddow so often says, “watch this space.”