Northwest Indiana Comical Politics

IU Trustess Reach New Low

After my request to speak at the Indiana University Trustees' meeting on July 9 was turned down, I reported on this blog how the Trustees, the President of the University, and NWI Chancellor Bruce Bergland disrespected NWI by this rejection. 

This rejection was particularly directed at myself, as the one individual who does not fall for their lies, and generally at NWI for daring to raise any issue about higher education.  Everybody in Indiana, including the people attending this meeting know that NWI and higher education is an oxymoron.  Just ask Bergland and the Gary trustee Clarence Boone, Sr.

I wanted to talk about a law school in NWI, I was laughed away.  By the way, they seem to be talking about a new law school for Indiana in Terra Haute.   That makes sense they don't have the geniuses Bergland and Boone that NWI have neither of which supported me when I wanted to speak on behalf of the citizens of NWI to the Board.

The final straw of the disrespect that these people showed NWI is their change of the rules when no one was looking.  The Trustees had their web site changed so that it no longer explained that it was permissible to address the Board -- and that these comments from the citizens of Indiana were welcome.  According to the web site the page was last updated on June 13, 2006.  Four days after I tried to speak to them according to their rules and one day after I posted my rejection on this blog site.

It is pitiful that just to deny NWI and myself, the trustees have ended an open policy of dialog with the citizens of Indiana.  A dialog that is the fiduciary duty of all university trustees to perform as part of their service.  Before now, the IU trustees were the only one with this open policy.

The cheats that they are, they changed the web site; but I kept a hard copy print out of the site before the change hiding their lies; so now I have them showing that they change the rules when dealing with NWI.  (I will have the scanned version on this blog shortly.)  They are truly low lifes and they speak badly about Bobby Knight?  At least Dr. Knight was able to win and increase the fame of IU.

IU and Purdue Again Insult NWI's Intelligence

My predictions in an earlier blog about the shortcomings of higher education in NWI and the resulting inaction by the Presidents and Trustees of Indiana and Purdue University is coming true.  I promised that once they were exposed for their failures, then the full scale public relations machine will go into full swing -- and it has.

After I exposed in the newspaper and my blog that IUN and its Chancellor and IU President "have no clothes on," all of a sudden President Herbert comes through NWI in a whirlwind promising everything; but producing NOTHING.  Remember public relations does not achieve anything, it only tries to pretend and fool the people into thinking that something is going on when it really isn't.

The first things he promised is that IUN will double its enrollment to 10,000 students and will move to build a dormitory.  These are all vacuous promises and both Bergland and Herbert, B & H, know it.  It is only important for them to make promises that answer my criticism and then they are betting on the public and their political representatives to forget about it. 

The plan for 10,000 students was hatched two weeks ago out of thin air by Herbert to show he cares.  After talking to a number of faculty members and administrators at IUN, I found out that they have never heard of this before and almost fell out of their chairs when Herbert announced it at IUN.  Even Bergland had to hang his head.  Not only had they not heard about it; but, for over two years Bergland has been arguing to the faculty that they need to get ready to DOWNSIZE because there will be a drop in enrollment from the current level.  This was also reflected in the re-organization plan that Bergland unveiled this summer, after an administrators retreat, to re-direct IUN into becoming a glorified DeVry Institute; but certainly not a serious university campus that has the stature to represent Gary on its centennial birthday and certainly not a credit to NWI.

As far as a dormitory at IUN, it is a great idea so why is it not being done?  Dormitories are self financing (no State funds) and even a campus as small as Purdue North Central, half the size of IUN, now has a dorm.  If you mean it, just do it; don't just promise. 

Why the sudden change?  Only because I went down to the Trustees meeting and showed up what charlatans they and the President are.  Herbert commits to getting 10,000 students to IUN and said publicly that he will direct his administrators to pursue this goal.  Since Bergland has been doing the direct opposite for over two years there seems to be no sense in keeping him on.  He has served his purpose.  It is now time for a growth Chancellor.  The President specifically said he would unequivocally direct his administrators prioritize the increase of enrollment at IUN; but we all know that this is going to take additional funds. 

This is the part where the show becomes solely a big public relations lie.  The budget for the next two years, 2007-08 and 2008-09, is already put together and is on its way for approval by the Commission of Higher Education and then the State Board of Accounts and then the State Legislature.  No where in that plan is there money to grow IUN.  After two years President Herbert will not be here since he has already said he is leaving at the end of his current contract.

Again NWI is left holding the proverbial bag.  Now Bergland and Herbert did say they would be happy to do all kinds of new things at IUN, in Glen Park, etc. if Gary comes up with the money.  How dumb do they think we are?  How much money did West Lafayette come up with or Bloomington or even the City of Indianapolis?  Why Gary?  Do I smell a little racism here or am I just paranoid?

Now Purdue has been on the same public relations attack ever since I criticized them.  President Jischke was in NWI on Wednesday doing his whirlwind tour explaining how the favoritism for West Lafayette over NWI really benefits NWI.  Now there is a dance.  During the April Board of Trustees meeting in West Lafayette, President Jischke, with Chancellor Cohen present, said that the Merrillville Leaning Center was an "unquestionable success story."  Now everyone in Hammond knows that this is a complete fabrication and yet these administrators plant a story in today's local paper about the great number of students that the center serves and what a success it is. 

It is all a big lie and a complete public relations campaign.  It is true that there are 1,200 students or so who attend classes down there; but few if any of them are new.  Since Jischke and Cohen must know this they therefore must be making up the success story to justify their expenditure.  If any of these students were new then the overall enrollment at Purdue Calumet would increase.  In fact it has been flat for over ten years during the whole time in which PUC has taught classes at "south county."  So the Merriville Learning Center has had a zero consequences on the bottom line of increasing enrollment, even though that was its sole justification and the claim that the previous classes held in south county had contributed a significant number of new students.  This was all make believe by the previous Chancellor Yackel, the current one, and the President.

It was a Friday when I heard about this success in South County from President Jischke as it was presented in front of the Board of Trustees, who like minarets sat with their thumbs up their . . .uh .. uh nose and applauded.  None of the Trustees had sufficient brains to ask the simple questions I am asking here: show me the numbers.  The Trustees of Purdue University must have learned their management skills from Enron U.

When I came back to Hammond that Friday I did a simple thing.  I looked at the numbers.  PUC was then over 50% through for enrollment for the 2006 fall semester, so how was south county classes doing.  The result was astonishing.  Few of the classes had more than one or two students in them.  This had been consistent with the campus's experience over the past ten years.  What the administrators at the Chancellor's and President's orders were doing is shutting down classes in Hammond or limiting their size and numbers so that by the beginning of the semester there would be enough students "forced" to take classes in south County.  Let us not forget that that whole building sits primarily empty for four months of each year during the summer.

This also concurred with IUN's experience when they were invited to share the space and offer classes at the new Merriville Learning Center.  They offered the classes and no one came.  It was a complete financial and educational failure and they put a stop to it. 

If anyone were to ask why this was building was built then it is up to the proper agencies to investigate whether it was incompetent stupidity or greed. 

In the meantime, IUN and PUC are on a full court press PR campaign to undermine the development of NWI.  As part of this the Chancellors and the Presidents will attempt to stifle free speech by attacking me personally and attempt to hurt my family's ability to make a living.  What is surprising is that these so called leaders will not blink at people on their campuses advocating the end of the United States and killing of Americans.  That they defend as free speech.  But try to improve the lives of people in NWI and they are willing the go after the jugular of my family's ability to earn a living.  That is truly low and they somehow think of themselves as intellectual "elites".  G-d save us from such leaders.

Again how stupid do they think we are?  President Herbert of IU announces that Mayor Rudy Clay of Gary is on board for new buildings at IUN.  Who thought he was not on board?  Or that anyone opposed it or stood in the way of IUN growth?  The only impediment was the President and the Board of Trustees.

They continue to play a smoke and mirror game with NWI in favor of their own careers and the middle section of the State.  It is time for NWI to assert itself as an independent important financial resource for Indiana and we should be treated with the respect we deserve; not as children to be wooed by magic tricks.

Thursday, Day for Mayor Clay to "bitch-slap" IU President Adam Herbert

As I mentioned on my previous blog here, the Indiana University administrators are going into a full court press to help their image in NWI while they proceed to dismantle meaningful higher education here.  The President of the University is coming to NWI on Thursday to dedicate "a" new building and meet with the faculty and administrators.  Now remember Bloomington (and West Lafayette) have been building dozens of new buildings over the past couple of years so don't be so impressed that between the two campuses, IUN and PUC, we have one new building and one new parking garage in over four years (only the building is actually funded by the State in any way).  In the grand scheme of things for higher education in Indiana this is less than giving us peanuts.

As my experience with the IU Trustees has shown, only the high paid administrators are being invited to a taxpayer underwritten lunch, not your every day faculty and workers.  They are going to try to tell the faculty and the citizens of NWI that they really care about us and our economic development.  This is why they plan to do this during the summer; they know that most of the faculty who may ask the hard questions and who know that neither campus is even a third rate university are not on campus for the two months of the summer.  These are the same people who may ask the President of IU, why the Chancellors wife is running the campus and designing its makeup?

But like my visit with the Trustees, the President who showed his lack of grasp of the issues at the Trustees' meeting, will have dodged a bullet again.

By the way the President of Purdue University is going to be in NWI on Wednesday to do the same thing to a private group of business people.  He needs the same "bitch-slap"; but, from a different mayor.

What we taxpaying citizens of NWI need to understand is that these presidents have no, I repeat no, interest in NWI.  They have absolutely no reward structure for success in NWI only in having us believe that they care so we leave them alone.  This belief that they care is to be nurtured by their hires the Chancellors of the campuses.  All of these people only, and I repeat only, care about is what is happening in West Lafayette or Bloomington. 

Now is the time for Mayor Rudy Clay, and the other Mayors who may care about any development in NWI, to take these presidents aside and literally "bitch-slap" them and let them know in no uncertain terms that we are the taxpayers who are underwriting their success and we are not going to take our third class citizen status in higher education any longer. 

That would be an example of true leadership by Mayor Clay.  The first time that has really happened in NWI.  With all of Mayor Hatcher's claims, he was never a leader except in his own eyes; it is time for Gary to have a leader.

I drive this challenge to all the mayors and political and economic leaders of NWI.  It is not necessary to repeat all the dollar figures and the possibilities and what might have been if we had received all the tax money returned to us for higher education.  All one can do anything about is the future.

All of the NWI leadership knows that there is no such thing as economic development without a first class university.  That is why Indianapolis has encircled itself with a ring of over five first class universities with IUPUI in the middle.  NWI taxpayers are paying for it and Indianapolis is reaping the economic development.  When are our leaders going to wake up; or stop doing as John Aguilera does getting paid under the table for representing Indianapolis and not the people who elected him.

If there is ever to be economic development in NWI, the "bitch-slap" needs to occur.  Now is the time for our good mayor and Lake County Democratic Leader to show what we are made of:

WE ARE DAMN MAD AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE

IU Trustees Disrespect NWI

To the middle part of the State we in NWI are only children who require their proper parenting.  I never knew how true the level of disrespect was until I faced the Indiana University Trustees.

Last Thursday and Friday the Indiana University Trustees held their monthly meeting at IU Kokomo.  For those of you who may not know, that is about 120 miles south of Hammond, north of Indianapolis (another of the many campuses, almost all of Indiana's, that create a 60 miles circle around the City of Indianapolis).

To show them respect and to be treated as an adult, I followed the direction provided on the IU Trustees web site.  The following is a direct copy of their Secretary's statement on the IU web site:

What are the guidelines for public comments at IU Board of Trustees' meetings?

Public comments on specific topics will be heard at the appropriate committee meetings. To find out where and when a given subject will be discussed, please consult the agenda at www.indiana.edu/~trustees. Agendas are posted seven to 10 days before the meeting.

Trustees are interested in your comments, but face full agendas at their regular meetings. Speakers are asked to observe the following guidelines in the interests of time:

• Please confine your comments to about three minutes.
• Plan on arriving in the meeting room before the start of business, and identify yourself to board staff before the meeting begins.
• Please do not bring overhead slides or PowerPoint presentations.
• If you have handouts, please bring 30 copies. If several speakers wish to address the same topic, please delegate one or two to represent the group.

After leaving at 5am (they are 1 hour ahead of NWI) I arrived for the first meeting and requested from the Secretary of the Board an opportunity for three minutes to address the Board.  I told her I was available all day and would be willing to wait and address them at any time during Friday on issues concerning the needs of higher education in NWI in general and in particular as they relate to equity and minority education.

Once they found out I was from NWI and wanted to talk about equity, I was completely flat out refused any opportunity to publicly address the Trustees.  This was especially true, after the Board Secretary talked to Chancellor Bruce Bergland, the one person in the room who I believe knew me, I was treated like a Biblical leper -- not allowed to get close to anyone.

For all the effort I had made from following their direction it is the height of disrespect to leave me, after investing my time and money as a taxpaying citizen, without an opportunity for even a minute to publicly inform them of issues in higher education that we face here from the perspective of the citizens of NWI.

I was finally "allowed" to have a two minute exchange with the President of the Board in a hidden corner of the room, I presume so no one would see us nor hear us, since it had to be after everyone had left for lunch (on the taxpayer's dime of course, i.e. people like me).  I was not invited if anyone wonders.

This President, although acknowledging disparity between campuses, was totally disinterested in the fact that NWI's campuses are third class citizens in the hierarchy of IU and the Commission of Higher Education.  He acknowledged that Bloomington was number one, Indianapolis a close second and finally Gary somewhere at the bottom; but that was not something he, or the Trustees cared to address.  I then tried to inform him that it was commendable for the Trustees during their last meeting to try to get more minorities specifically Blacks and Hispanic to attend IU Bloomington; but the fact is most of the minority students wanted to attend the NWI campuses, specifically IUN. 

This the Trustees didn't care about.  They only want minorities down in Bloomington, irrespective of where they come from (are any of them Hoosier citizens?) or what this focus on Bloomington does to the State's economy.  That was the extent of my two minute meeting.  I was thanked by the President of the Board, essentially for being a snitch, and telling on my fellow citizens of NWI that we were not happy.  This now will allow him and all their high powered consultants to start a PR campaign to show how good they are. 

I was insulted but more importantly because I was not given an opportunity to say anything to the Board these individuals with whom we have entrusted our State's welfare were not forced to answer anything in public.  When you ask something in public it is recorded for everyone and it lacks deniability.

If history repeats itself then the "powers that be" will again try to go after my family and hurt me or my family in our employment or our pursuit of careers.  This is how these people continuously work.  But so be it.  Sometimes someone has to say the emperor has no clothes on.

When I first planned to go down to talk to the IU Board of Trustees I was very favorably disposed toward them.  They seemed to be much more open than Purdue's and much more interested in the long term economic development of all the State of Indiana and all of its citizens; this obviously did not turn out to be true.  In watching the IU Board of Trustees I was amazed by two things. 

First, the President of IU, Adam Herbert, who is being forced to leave in two years, is the most unprepared and ineffective manager/administrator of a large public institution I have ever seen in my life.  Now it is true that I have a number of policy disagreement with President Martin Jischke of Purdue, but, I have to always give him credit for his and his staff's complete preparedness and professionalism.  Purdue's President has management talent and ability that serves Purdue exceptionally well; whereas, IU's President should have been fired instantly after the faculty rebelled because the next two years will be a disaster for IU under his ineffectual leadership.  It was embarrassing and frankly painful to sit and listen to him and the fact that the Trustees were willing to do it shows their lack of understanding of what lies in front of them.

The IU President was too busy reminding the Trustees of the consultants he was hiring to study the "motor pool", "the bookstore", and the "auditorium usage".  This is what replaced economic development through higher education in NWI and the support of minorities in higher education that I was going to talk about.

My second surprise is the lack of support for NWI higher education and our desire to have a comprehensive metropolitan university like Indianapolis's IUPU or University of Illinois Chicago that Mayor Daley fought for. Sad to say this lack of support came from not only the Trustees whose fiduciary duty applies to ALL the citizens of Indiana, not just the ones in Indianapolis, it was also evident on the part of IUN's Chancellor who should be representing NWI, not Bloomington or Indianapolis. 

The disrespect shown to me by these individuals is not only meant for me, or even possibly at all for me.  It is aimed at the Hoosier citizens of Gary, East Chicago, and Hammond.  It is aimed at the Mayors of those Cities: Mayor Clay, Mayor Pabey, and Mayor McDermott.  And most importantly, it is aimed at our minority citizens and our citizens who are first generation university attendees.  In many many ways it was disrespectful of all of NWI.

If any of you think that it was me alone who was disrespected then think again.  If it was only about me, they would have let me speak and then ignored me, as they have done to others before.  What they don't want is for you, citizens of NWI, to think that somehow NWI should think of themselves as a civilized part of the Hoosier State like Indianapolis.

Get it through your head you were "dissed".  Not only by the IU Trustees (and in the past the Purdue Trustees) but also by the people who are here representing them who claim to look out for your interests and welfare.  It is the lowest of disrespect when NWI is treated by these people like children who need to be taken care of by these people in or hired by the southern part of the State.

Mis-Directed Higher Education Undermines Economic Development

Commission of Higher Education is Destroying Indiana Economy:

Indiana's brain drain and lack of economic development can be laid directly at the feet of the Commission of Higher Education, its Commissioner Stan Jones, and the overall structure of higher education in the Hoosier State.

The structure of higher education in Indiana has not kept up with the Twenty-First Century, leaving it structurally focused on the 1950s, and it continues to promote the racist policies of that time, although not as overtly nor as openly, but the consequences to Hoosier minority communities is the same.

The fault lies in three places.  First is the Commission of Higher Education and its Commissioner Stan Jones.  Second, is the Board of Trustees of Indiana University and Purdue University who together have no idea about higher education and are generally so overwhelmed by the administrators of their respective institutions as to be incapable of asking any appropriate questions.  Finally, the fault lies with the Governor and the State Legislature for allowing for this mis-structure and for not requiring any accountability on the part of the Trustees or the Commission of Higher Education.

Commissioner Stan Jones is at Fault:

Commissioner Stan Jones is a true example of the "peter principle".  He was promoted to this position some twenty years ago by then Governor Evan Bayh.  He had no previous experience, except for functioning as a State legislator and staff aid to Governor Bayh.  The problem is that the section of the State he represented was West Lafayette.  Therefore most of his time was spend protecting the West Lafayette campus of Purdue and indirectly the complementary large campus of Indiana University at Bloomington.  The man literally has no idea of what is required to have higher education support a state's development economically and culturally.  He only knows what he was told for years by a succession of presidents of Purdue University's large campus. 

Further it needs to be remembered that Mr. Jones has never held a serious job.  He went straight from his undergraduate degree at Purdue, West Lafayette to the State Legislature.  So his whole career has been spent living off the public dole and not in in position that requires management or critical creative policy decisions.

Mr. Jones as Commissioner of Higher Education in Indiana over the past twenty years has achieved two questionable goals: 

Indiana Fiftieth out of the Fifty States:

First, he has achieved the dubious distinction of having Indiana ranked number fifty of the fifty states by the National Center for Educational Statistics of the Federal Government for having the most inequitable distribution of State higher education funds between the large campuses and the rest of the State.  This is not just a small mal-distribution, this is fifty out of fifty, the bottom of the heap.  It basically means that he has kept his former "clients" happy as commissioner; but destroyed any ability of the State of Indiana to develop economically as a whole and to stop the drastic brain drain from which it suffers. 

By the way the only place that does not suffer from a brain drain is the areas surrounded by the large university campuses.  There is no surprise there.

The second disaster attributed directly to Mr. Stan Jones is the creation of a "junior college" system for Indiana in the first decade of the Twenty-First Century.  Now that is truly a day late and a dollar short.  In the process, Indiana neither has a legitimate junior college system nor a legitimate regional campus system.  This new junior college that combined Ivy Tech with Vincence University was a disaster and that agreement folded.  We now have a half-assed junior college, Ivy Tech, that everyone realizes is lacking of any academic quality while simultaneously the State of Indiana through its Commission of Higher Education has left the regional campuses without a well defined mission, or any real mission at all, and no serious funding to carry out that none existent mission.

End Indiana University Regional Re-Organization:

We now have the strange situation that Indiana University President, after a vote of no confidence by the real universities at Bloomington and Indianapolis, is focusing on "restructuring and re-organizing" the regional campuses.  These are the only ones who cannot fight back.  It has resulted in the strange situation where Indiana University Northwest's Chancellor Bruce Bergland has decided to emphasize excellence and quality in such programs as ethnic studies which by definition cannot be of quality without a graduate program and graduate students (which IUN is not allowed or funded to have).  There are so many such programs across the country that it is a meaningless exercise for IUN, except for the fact that the Chancellor Bergland wants to punish the campus for exposing his sweetheart deal with his wife's gardening contract and the "outing" of his attempt to get a presidency position at another institution.  He is further creating a new School of "Health".  That is completely meaningless without the graduate component of research that Indiana University asked for before and was rejected for NWI.  This again would require graduate education and graduate students.  By the way where is the public law school for three-quarter of a million Hoosier citizens in NWI?

What is most pitiful is that SPEA at IUN, the one school with a national reputation and one that is not duplicated anywhere is not, I repeat NOT, being designated as a source of excellence for NWI for IUN.  Now if NWI does not need improved public affairs and quality public officials, I do not know what does.

Commission and Boards of Trustees Destroying Northwest Indiana:

But the reality is that the programs that have been put forth by the Commission of Higher Education, lead by Mr. Stan Jones, with the cooperation of the Board of Trustees of the two major universities in Indiana, has specifically targeted the demise of economic development and advancement in the northern part of the State.  The specific places that have continued to be damaged are: Hammond, East Chicago, Gary, South Bend, and Fort Wayne (plus all the cities and towns in between).  Essentially all the northern part of the State.  This are the areas of the State that ONLY have regional campuses and now they have only a half way effort at smoke and mirrors to make it look like something is moving when it is not   One cannot, no matter how much mumbling one does, equate campuses getting $7,500, or $5,500 per student per semester with the campuses in the northern part of the State that are only getting $3,500.

They are also Racists:

It is also representative of institutional racism.  It is discriminating against Black, Hispanics, and first-generation whites who are the majority of those attending the northern regional campuses.

The only solution for this problem is for the Governor to first remove Stan Jones as Commission, for incompetence if he has to.  Second, the northern regional campuses need to have their mission re-defined to the equivalent of a metropolitan university such as IUPUI is designated.  Third, the governance of the regional campuses, especially in NWI, needs to be reorganized with new chancellors, not the current ones enslaved to Bloomington or West Lafayette, reporting directly to the Board of Trustees or the creation of a NWI University Board of Trustees for these campuses.  Finally to achieve this financially, Bloomington and West Lafayette need to zeroed out for any increase in the 2007/8 and 2008/9 budgets and those funds need to be utilized for the intensive unprecedented improvement of the regional campuses in accordance with their new mission of metropolitan universities with full graduate programs and graduate professional programs.

New Program Requires New Governance:

The State of Indiana must immediately put in place a new governance system for its regional universities especially in the north and NWI whose fiduciary duty is those campuses and the Hoosier citizens that they serve.  This will overnight end the brain-drain in Indiana and result in economic growth and population increase unheard of in the history of the State.  If this is not undertaken during the next session of the State Legislature there will be no hope for Indiana recovering its place economically in my life time.  The brain-drain will continue and Indiana will continue to suffer a slow economic demise through a attrition of qualified population.

NWI Tribal Politics

Recently, I spent about ten hours in dialogue with Gary residents. This opportunity presented itself when I replaced a talk show host on a radio program focused predominantly on Gary. To the best of my knowledge all the callers were from Gary.

My experience provided empirical evidence that politics and economic development in NWI is “tribal”. As a political scientist this is the interpretation I have placed on why things happen the way they do here. It has been repeated by some other commentators but has not had any substantive effect on how things are done in NWI. 

It was well over ten years ago when I was first publicly analyzed and described what was occurring in NWI politics. Why was it so hard for NWI to advance?  Why were there public officials who openly acknowledged the corruption and unethical behavior in the public sector but never did anything to deal with it? My response then, and it continues to hold true, is that NWI’s leadership system can best be characterized as “tribalism”.

Tribalism is a political and social system that was last in operation in the US over 100 years ago. It is based on the principle that the most important characteristic for evaluating people is their loyalty. Loyalty is based on family, ethnicity, history of loyal support, and payback. Most of the underdeveloped parts of the world are based on this model. It is one of the main reasons why in the modern world they continue to be underdeveloped. A good example of this system is the governmental and social hierarchy of Mexico. From the smallest town, to the individual states, and to the Federal government, most transactions in Mexico are based on tribal relations.

It is the same in NWI. This has been occurring here long before there was a significant Mexican-American citizenry. Tribalism is equally practiced by the Eastern Europeans, the African-Americans, and the Southern “crackers” that make up most of the population of NWI. The opposite of “tribalism” is “modernism.” 

Within a modern system what matters is what you know, what you can contribute, not who you know and who you are loyal to. A modern political system looks at performance and ability; not “tribal” connections. Within a modern system tribal connection are always suspect and are by definition defined as unethical. When JFK was elected president he nominated his brother Robert as US Attorney General. A Democratic Congress, and the American people, was so outraged at this act of nepotism and the tribalism of which it smacked that they passed a law making future nepotism tribal appointments illegal. All of the NWI leadership combined has never found an act of “tribalism” that they would actually call unethical publicly. This is because they are part of the “tribe” and the only behavior they know is one dictated by “tribalism”.

It needs to be recognized that "tribal" political leadership is not the sole fault or consequence of those in office; it is primarily the consequence of the citizens whose expectation is "tribal". The citizenry neither expect any more than tribal relations and it is not willing to pay for experience in their political and public leadership. They will complain about their "tribal" leaders; but God forbid they have to actually pay for in taxes for competency for a Twenty-First Century leadership.

This is what I was reminded of by the callers. How can I come from outside “their” city and be critical? How can I tell them how to run “their” city? Most every caller believed that since I was not part of the “tribe”, by definition, I had nothing to contribute. This is not the place to point out that the “tribe” has not done the greatest of jobs; but that does not matter; only a member of the tribe can participate.

Now this is true of much of NWI beyond the borders of Gary. Specific performance criteria for public leaders are non existent. This would be rational and modernist; not “tribal”.