I’m as supportive of public transportation as the next guy, but projects still need to make sense — and right now, the Access to the Region’s Core project has too many problems to continue moving it forward.
Upset victories in Republican primaries in Delaware and New Hampshire have further muddied the waters in this year’s election, taking two states listed by Real Clear Politics as “Lean Republican” and likely moving them into the “Toss-up” column.
In Delaware, Democrat Chris Coons has an 11-point lead in the most recent poll over Tea Party favorite Chritine O’Donnell, who knocked off Republican Mike Castle, who was expected to win by a large vote total come November.
In New Hampshire, early returns have Ovide Lamontagne beating Kelly Avotte — which, if it holds, gives the Democrats a shot at stealing a Republican-held seat, based on polling from earlier this summer.
This is just speculation, of course. But it does present us with an interesting election season to follow.
The electorate is a lot more unpredictable than the national story line is letting on. The common narrative is that the Democrats get smacked and possibly lose both houses of Congress. I have my doubts, mostly because the narrative is based on 1994 and some questionable polling. Democrats will lose seats — most likely a lot, but we have to acknowledge that the wild cards are having their impact in states that six or eight months ago were considered GOP locks: Sharron Angle winning the GOP primary may have saved Harry Reid’s job, for instance, and the Tea Party win in Alaska could flip a long-held GOP set.
And then there is Delaware, which was expected to go to popular Republican Congressman Mike Castle, but which now is a crapshoot because of a hard rightwing challenge that could sink the GOP and keep the seat in the Democratic column.
Here is the latest polling.
This isn’t meant to say that the Democats will win any of these seats; rather, the point I am making is that this is a volatile election season and anything could happen.
This MSNBC story implies an interesting question: Are we pushing American Muslims toward the very behaviors that we accuse them of engaging in?
The gist here is that Muslims are starting to ask what it will take to be accepted as full partners in the American project. How much effort must be expended by a religious, cultural or ethnic minority for that acceptance to be had?
The answer is complicated and a bit disheartening. The process of Americanization takes time — too much time, unfortunately — and it is a two-way street. Minority/immigrant groups identify the best parts of their heritage and incorporate them into their new identities, while taking on the best and worst of America’s cultural identity. At the same time, the larger society must make its own transition, which is where problems arise. The society as a whole resists these new elements, push them to the margins. Over time, hopefully, this changes and the outsiders are brought inside, or at least are no longer looked upon with suspicion.
At the same time minorities of all stripes tend to remain outsiders to some degree forever. My Jewishness no longer prevents my participation in the larger society, for instance, but it does create some degree of separation in some people’s minds. There remains a far more significant portion of the population than we would like to admit who carries with them the harsh stereotype of the Jew as cheap or obnoxious or what have you.
You can hear it when people speak in what they believe are closed settings. Sometimes you’ll hear someone use the phrase “jewing him down” or make some other ugly remark. Or, and this maybe more common, you will hear someone praise a member of a minority group for being unlike the stereotype — I was told, once, that I was a “good Jew” (meaning I’m not cheap or bossy or something like that, I guess). Joe Biden, during the 2008 campaign, remarked that Obama was the first black candidate to be a legitimate candidate, because he was eloquent and clean-cut. The implication was that most blacks are otherwise, a kind of soft racism that continues to plague this country.
It is ugly, but not overt — though, it carries with it the potential for a fuller, nastier racism — which we have been seeing directed at the president since it became clear he would be the nominee. (Not all critics of the president are racist, as I’ve discussed with my students, but there are criticsw who are racist and it would be naive to think otherwise.)
For Muslims — and many in the Asian community — the racism remains overt and dangerous and the “good Muslim” trope has yet to become common. It is evident in the controversy over the Islamic cultural center proposed for downtown New York (Muslims, as a group, can only honor 9/11 by staying as far away from the site as possible), in the attacks on mosques around the country and the easy way in which some take the actions of a small handful of Muslims and make those actions stand for an entire world community.
Islam is no different than any of the other major religions in its diversity or its insistence that it is the only path to truth. It is no more dangerous than Christianity, for instance, which has its own warrior history (the Crusades) and a dangerous subset of militant groups that attack abortion providers and have recast Jesus as a warrior king).
Does anyone think that the “Christian nation” nonsense pushed not just by the extreme right but by mainstream conservatives is benign? Having been at the butt-end of prejudice and bigotry as a Jew, I can tell you that you’re fooling yourself if you believe that.
Marginalizing and demonizing American Muslims is morally and ethically wrong — and also foolish. Sartre, in his biographical sketch of the French novelist and playwright Jean Genet explained Genet’s criminality by saying that he lived out the lifeplan others had written for him; Genet became a criminal because it was the path created for him and one of the few options he was given.
Are we doing the same to American Muslims?
President Obama offers a powerful quotation that we all need to take to heart:
“This country stands for the proposition that all men and women are created equal, that they have certain inalienable rights,” Mr. Obama said. “And what that means is that if you could build a church on a site, you could build a synagogue on a site, if you could build a Hindu temple on a site, then you should be able to build a mosque on the site.”
There is no excuse for the violence breaking out in Muslim countries over the bigoted Koran-burning threat. Resorting to violence as a response to a slight or an insult. And there is no excuse for the blanket-blame thrown over all Muslims by critics of the downtown mosque and others.
The president, in this speech today, reaffirmed the nation’s commitment to religious freedom and diversity.
Bravo., Mr. President.
