Left-Right Attacks

We have long ago concluded that extreme right-wing, left-wing attacks on each other have little to do with what is in the best interest of most Americans in the lower segment of the income distribution. These attacks have only one purpose--to dislodge the opposition and take control of a political office, an administration, or any other political unit that is in a position to distribute "goodies." The goodies mean different things to different people. For some, they are emotional feelings associated with being part of a group that is in charge (an X or Y administration or some Congress person). For others, the goodies may mean an appointment in a local, state, or federal agency. And for the "big hitters" the goodies are lucrative government contracts, with some of the money being returned to the official or the party in the form of contributions.


So, extreme left-right partisan attacks are mostly emotional nonsense for the large majority of the partisans, while those who will belly-up to the bar for the politically-linked dollar benefits sit in the background and wait for their goodies.


The only genuine critiques of this form of "cronyism" are found in the Tea Party and Occupy Movements. The former are more organized than the latter, but what they have in common is a critique of the current political system, although they often have different targets. Moreover, they have been led to believe that they have reason to fear and hate each other. What they also have in common is that they are manipulated by segments of the national political parties (Republicans and Democrats) that use them for their own purposes. But as we have predicted elsewhere, the TP and OM will one day join together. Why? They are unified in their opposition to defense spending, to business as usual when it comes to spending tax dollars, and they agree on the need for term limits. That is a good basis for a unified movement, assuming that they can smell the "bullshit" associated with most "social issues."


So, extreme left-right ideologues are "whistling past the graveyard" because they have little to offer the bottom 50-80 percent of Americans who sit on the sidelines while nothing happens to benefit them--except for the promise of a $12 an hour minimum wage, a path to citizenship, or federal social welfare benefits---which will keep them in the same places they currently occupy.

Class and Immigration

The United States should welcome immigrants from the Middle East who are fleeing war-torn regions or political persecution. This should be done with appropriate vetting of the claims of asylum seekers. But the issue is not whether to accept them but where they should be located after their arrival. The best locations should be where they might have the most supportive communities. Thus, they should be located in communities adjoining elite colleges and universities, and in the high income communities in cities like Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Academe: Then and Now

CONTEXT:
                    A Purdue University faculty member was criticized in the local newspaper for his "radical" political views. The then President of the university, Frederick L. Hovde, made a public statement about "academic freedom" that prompted my letter to the President.






















President Frederick L. Hovde
Office of the President
Executive Building
Campus       
                                                                                     May 7, 1966




Dear President Hovde:


  
      Your recent statement on the importance of academic freedom of expression in the university made me proud to be a member of this academic community. Your views contained the elements of a philosophy which is essential for the growth and maintenance of a great university. I sense a renewed spirit and strength among my colleagues in having heard you express something publicly which they so firmly believe in as academics.



  I would also like to take this opportunity to express my strong disagreement with a view you expressed at a recent faculty convocation. You stated, as I remember, that "the professional schools are the heart of the university." I know that this view is shared by many who see the decline of the liberal arts college which cannot  compete with the professional schools financed by Federal, corporation, and foundation money. And I see no necessary reason to lament the passing of the liberal arts college, for the changing world has put science and specialized education at the center of the university. What I take issue with is that the professional schools are so heavily tied and connected to the production of specialists for consumption by business and government. What disappears in this atmosphere is the humanism of independent scholars in both the liberal arts and the professions.     




    The heart of any university is to be found in the strength of the spirit of free inquiry among a community of scholars. While such a spirit is not tied to any particular school or college in a university, it has traditionally been found to flourish best in the liberal-humanistic studies.




    I hope that you will have some occasion in the future to present your views on the meaning of education and the university in American society. The faculty, students, and community would prosper by having the opportunity to hear you speak.


         
Sincerely,


                Robert Perrucci,  Associate Professor of Sociology

Identity or Biology?

The re-appearance in the news of Elizabeth Warren as a possible Presidential candidate has led me to uncover an old message that I sent to colleagues. It was written on May 26, 2012.


After reading today's Journal and Courier story about Liz Warren's struggle with her identity or biology (she just discovered she was 1/36 American Indian) I was reminded of a long-standing question from my youth. I had a observed as a young ethno-demographer that almost all the Italians I knew had much darker skin than anyone else except neighborhood Negroes (the term used in my youth). In fact, I had darker skin than one of my Negro friends, Junior Emerson. As I matured and read more widely (the New York Daily News not the NYT) I discovered that almost all Southern Italians were darker than those from the Florence area. How could that be? Was Sicily closer to the sun? Were Sicilians or Barese (that's my family, from Bari) too poor to afford sun screen
and sun hats? No, the question required a deeper understanding.


It wasn't until my college days and my first course in biology when I learned of Mendel and theories of plant genetics and its link to human genetics. The plot thickened when I took a medieval history course and learned about the Mameluke people from North Africa. Yipes! In my neighborhood we called kids we thought were dummies "mamelukes." How can that be? Later in the history course I read about a Sultan named Mingooch. Holy cow! May father's nickname was Mingooch. What the hell is going on?


If Liz Warren has identity with out biology, I have biology without identity, and I am totally confused. Am I really African American (1/36)? Could I have gone to Harvard instead of Cortland State? Has my career at Purdue been limited by the missed opportunities enjoyed by Warren? Should I tell my kids that they may be descendants of Sultan Mingooch? Would that do them any good?


I am also saddened by the fact that I may have unintentionally misled my friends, who have white identity and may start to think of me in a new way. I think that we all owe a debt of gratitude to Liz Warren for coming out and telling the world that she was the first Native American at Harvard. Who knows, Purdue may have to acknowledge that I was the first African American to get a PhD in sociology from Purdue, and my life will be used to counteract the bad publicity from the Higginbotham years.

Tax Bamboozle

This is a post-tax reflection.


Why do the pols continue to blow smoke up the asses of the American people? The basic issue of taxes and how to raise revenue are not hard to understand, yet they are never discussed. The reason being that the top 1%-5% benefit from not clarifying what are really simple issues. Keep in mind who is in the top 1-5%.


1) There is a difference between the marginal tax rates (which the President wants to raise on the top 2%) and the effective tax rate which is never mentioned. The effective tax rate is the percentage of taxable income that is actually paid after deductions. So, if you cap deductions at a certain amount (e,g, $30,000) or eliminate deductions (like mortgage interest, contributions, state property taxes, etc.) without raising the marginal tax rates, the effective tax rates will go up and the government can raise more revenue.


2) Now why would the President, the politicians, and the rest of the high earners, who know the difference between effective and marginal rates, dwell on being for or against raising the marginal rates and resist eliminating deductions? If you eliminate deductions (individual and corporate) you will raise the effective tax rate. Could this debate over marginal rates be a big smoke screen to keep from discussing effective rates.


3) Could the silence on this matter be the fact that the Presidents effective tax rate was 26% while his marginal tax rate was 35% (or whatever the top bracket is). Could the answer be in the fact that probably every member of Congress, every major media owner/manager/anchor/etc. also have lower effective tax rates than their marginal rate, and thus do not want to eliminate or cap deductions at $30,000 and keep the marginal rates as is. Why doesn't the President tell Joe the Plumber the difference between effective and marginal tax rates. And by the way, we wonder where Warren Buffet is on this one; he is very concerned about his secretary's income but he is silent on deductions.


4) Our effective tax rate was higher than the Presidents, and probably higher that Romney, Buffet, or any member of Congress.


When we were kids we could always smell the horse manure because there were still horse-drawn vendors on the street. Today, the horses are gone but the smell is still there. 

Professional Advancement -- Academic Style

This is a summary of offers for academic positions that were received over a 50-year career. Letters are available.


"No amount of having starred/
Atones for later disregard/
Or keeps the end from being hard."       Robert Frost


1963: Faculty position, University of California, Berkeley
1963: Faculty position, Colorado State University
1963: Faculty position, Cornell University
1963: Faculty position, Kent State University
1964: Faculty position, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
1964: Faculty position, University of Waterloo-Canada
1964: Faculty position, Antioch College
1964: Faculty position, University of Nebraska
1965: Faculty position, University of Wisconsin-Madison (visited,
          offer received and refused).
1965: Faculty Position, Dartmouth College
1965: Faculty position, University of Delaware
1965: Faculty position, University of Illinois-Urbana
1966: Faculty position, University of California-Santa Barbara
1966: Faculty position, State University of New York-Stony Brook (visited,
          offer received and refused).
1967: Faculty position, School of Education, Stanford University
1968: Faculty position, Vanderbilt University (visited, offer received
          and refused).
1968: Faculty position, Tufts University
1969: Chair, Illinois State University
1971: Chair, University of Maryland-College Park (visited, offer received
          and refused).
1971: Faculty position, Ohio State University
1971: Chair, University of Nebraska
1971: Chair, University of Missouri
1971: Chair, Kent State University
1971: Chair, Lehigh University
1971 Faculty position, Michigan State University
1971: Chair, State University of New York-Binghamton
1972: Faculty position, Boston University
1972: Chair, Tufts University
1972: Faculty position, Indiana University
1973: Faculty position, University of Massachusetts-Amherst
1973: Chair, University of Delaware
1973: Faculty position, University of Maryland-College Park
1973: Chair, University of Utah
1979: Chair, Florida State University
1980: Chair, Michigan State University (Carolyn visited, offer received
          and refused).
1981: Dean, College of Liberal Arts, University of Kansas
1982: Chair, University of South Florida


CONCLUSION: After all of the above, we remained at Purdue for 50 years. WHY? It was the age of nepotism in higher education. All offers refused were because RP and CCP could not be on the faculty in the same department; the positions offered were in sociology and something else. Purdue was alone at the time for not having a nepotism rule. So much for conservatism at Purdue!

M - Academic Style

Our local newspaper recently published an interesting article on the prophet M and the roots of the prohibition against his "picturing." What was missing in the story is the less well-known fact that M also appears in human form, especially among infidels when they have strayed too far and are in need of re-education. The human appearance is unusual but it is designed to undercut many corrosive secular-modern ideas that are dangerous because they lead mere mortals to believe that they have the right--indeed the duty--to shape their own lives.


In our 50 years as faculty at Purdue University, we believe that M has appeared three times in human form. The first time was in the form of the University President who believed that his special powers required a revision of health insurance without consulting the mere mortals. The second time was when the Dean of Liberal Arts required the mere mortals under her command to vote repeatedly on the same issue until the outcome of the vote was the correct one. The third time was when the Provost believed that he/she possessed special knowledge of the talents of normal people, like the length of their beard, and therefore was empowered to act on behalf of the wishes of M.


We believe that there are many at the University who think they have special knowledge of M. They are found in three groups. Some of them are of low-birth with few followers, but who nonetheless believe that M speaks through them, and their passive nature only strengthens M. A second group is composed of others who are known to be special because of their religious training which took place among many others who claimed special knowledge of M. The third group knows that M is a myth, but they are fearful that a demystification of M would be damaging to the collective good, and harmful to their own careers and their families.


So where does this leave us. We believe that the cuckoo clock will make a reappearance as one of the greatest achievements of our civilization. The cuckoo clock will provide an abundance of new information about M and will inspire the appearance of new followers. What is to be done? Don't invest in razor blades or electric shavers!