Anatomy of the Deep State (2014 essay by Mike Lofgren)

Mike Lofgren is a former congressional staff member who served on both the House and Senate budget committees. His book about Congress, The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted, appeared in paperback on August 27, 2013.

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/ I like that book title!

I am recommending this essay because it pulls together in one place many tentacles of the Deep State and because it contains some information that was news to me. However, I wish that Lofgren had dealt with mainstream media.

I cannot summarize or excerpt this long essay fairly, but here is an excerpt anyway:

The corridor between Manhattan and Washington is a well trodden highway for the personalities we have all gotten to know in the period since the massive deregulation of Wall Street: Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and many others. Not all the traffic involves persons connected with the purely financial operations of the government: In 2013, General David Petraeus joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance. General Petraeus’ expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however, is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy. [4]

I had not realized some of the facts this essay mentions. Example:

Beginning in 1988, every US president has been a graduate of Harvard or Yale. Beginning in 2000, every losing presidential candidate has been a Harvard or Yale graduate, with the exception of John McCain in 2008.

(Interestingly, even within the tiny subset of Ivy League colleges, Harvard and Yale consider themselves sister colleges. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard%E2%80%93Yale_sister_colleges)

Trump was graduated from Wharton, so now there are two exceptions. Hillary, of course, was graduated from Wellesley, one of the Seven Sisters. It's probably as close to Harvard or Yale as a women's college gets; and, of course, she did go to Yale Law, as did Bubba. While the author writes as though the only Presidential candidates since 1988 have been Democrats or Republicans, Jill Stein went to Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. (I haven't looked up others, like Nader or Johnson.)

The web page links the reader to reactions from other authors, which I have not yet read. One of my own reactions: As I have posted here before, I think the close vote on Amash Conyers that Lofgren mentions as a hopeful sign was pure kabuki. Amash and Conyers may have been sincere, but I think the bill never had a prayer of passage and the closeness of the vote was only to fool and placate us after the Harkin-Clapper confrontation.

The vote was 217 against; 205 for. Only Democrats with nothing to lose voted against it, but just enough Democrats voted against it to kill it, with a dozen votes to spare, just in case. An example of a Democrat with nothing to lose would be Joseph Kennedy III, representing a district in Newton, Massachusetts (the city that is the locus of Barney Frank's former district) that is highly unlikely to elect a Republican. Not to mention that the descendants of Joe and Rose Kennedy's do not lose elections in Massachusetts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amash-Conyers_Amendment https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h412

I also had some different thoughts about Syria: http://caucus99percent.com/content/did-obama-draw-red-line-syrian-sand-d...

Obviously, I recommend reading the essay in its entirety. Pondering what, if any changes an outside the beltway President like Trump might make in the deep state may be interesting, too.

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ZimInSeattle's picture

The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government. Highly recommended. Explains a lot of what is going on.

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"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - JFK | "The more I see of the moneyed peoples, the more I understand the guillotine." - G. B. Shaw Bernie/Tulsi 2020

@ZimInSeattle

Was there a tidbit or two you can share?

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k9disc's picture

on FB.

Democrats pretending that the "Deep State" is some kind of Tea Party Conspiracy Theory.

It was completely gross. Of course, I read it again; having read it back at the time of it's release...

Thanks for sharing.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc

Everything is a conspiracy theory anymore, including things Democrats once raged about, like election fraud. If Democrats are the alleged victims of election fraud, it's real. If anyone claims it's happening, it's a conspiracy theory--and a baseless one at that. So transparent and repetitive. Yawn.

BTW: http://caucus99percent.com/content/theory-conspiracy-theory-or-healthy-c...

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k9disc's picture

in the same direction, @HenryAWallace .

I'd love to try to get ahead of this shit somehow. Messaging is recognizable so fast to me these days, I'm sure to a bunch of you too. We've got to be close to precognition.

Memes are more than the images with text -- they're real things and they hit so fast -- would be nice to insert inoculations into the constant stream of memes.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Pluto's Republic's picture

@k9disc

Messaging is recognizable so fast to me these days, I'm sure to a bunch of you too. We've got to be close to precognition.

Same here. It's like being on a smart-drug. And not happily so, because beyond seeing future realities, one can also see how the plain reality will be deliberately twisted to misinform the public more profoundly, and weaken their awareness. It's disturbing, to say the least.

...would be nice to insert inoculations into the constant stream of memes.

I obsess on that. So far the only technique I can come up with is to openly predict future propaganda twists publicly and cynically, thus neutralizing its impact and sabotaging its energy. I assume most pre-cogs do the same to hold back the tide.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Creosote.'s picture

@Pluto's Republic
to make the blinkers transparent -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Horses_2.jpg Feel like a foreigner now, listening closely to find confreres.

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@k9disc

I understand what you are saying, but I do not understand if you are saying it about something specific or if it is a general statement.

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studentofearth's picture

professional career paths. It is an effective method to diminish and control the voices for change. The predominance of University of Chicago Economics Department is another good example.

A voice for change is listened to a little quicker if one is from the "right" college.
The rest of us need to push the rock a farther up the hill before we get attention. Too few people evaluate the message before evaluating the person delivering the message.

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Still yourself, deep water can absorb many disturbances with minimal reaction.
--When the opening appears release yourself.

@studentofearth
The Ivy Leagues offer the best education that money can buy. Which is not necessarily the best education available, though it is widely perceived to be so. Unfortunately their ethical standards tend to be rather more variable than consistent, and the access to power they can provide tends to overshadow the actual value of their curricula.

An Ivy League degree will endow you with academic and social status, even if you are an ignoramus like Dubya. If you have the right connections and/or pedigree, you get the degree they bestow upon you, no questions asked, whether you deserve it or not. To maintain their position at the very top of the educational status ladder, certain accommodations to the ruling elite are deemed to be necessary.

Which is not to say that top quality education is not a prominent feature of these universities. Eminent scholars are drawn to them from all over the world, to share their expertise with other recognized authorities, all to the great benefit of the student body.

All in all, I'd say these elitist institutions both use and are used by America's economic rulers -- finally forming an integral part of the national ethos, and at the same time contributing greatly to its intellectual authority and credibility.

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native

@native

IMO. The names of some of the profs may not be as recognizable, but it doesn't mean they don't know their stuff or that they cannot teach it. Also, as I posted upthread, Harvard is easier on its students than some of the other schools that don't coast on their reputations. Aside from that, I agree: You are going to get a damned good education at an Ivy. Perhaps more important in terms of career success, you are going to make contacts that could be useful in your career. The likes of the Kennedys and the Kerrys may not see you as member of their social class, but they might throw some business or a client your way. Or not. Who knows?

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Big Al's picture

Or at least make them move to Russia or something.
No, that would be war.

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@Big Al

Out of all the colleges in the US, only 8 are Ivy Leagues and of the eight, only two produce Presidential nominees? When I was in school, Harvard had a reputation for being difficult to get into, unless you had some thumb on the scale, like being a legacy or being in some category they were looking for at the time.

Once a Harvard student, though, they protected you. Getting good grades and graduating with honors was easier than at schools without Harvard's reputation that were trying to boost themselves by being hard on students.

Even at that, the Ivies were not necessarily the most difficult schools to get into. http://www.businessinsider.com/these-8-us-colleges-are-more-selective-th...

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@HenryAWallace

The real poison is in the Ivy League educated economists.

Those are the ones you must treat with prejudice. They carry the seed of destruction in their pretty words. They are the snakes in the Garden.

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____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato

@Pluto's Republic

are dangerous. Some, but not all, economists, are dangerous, too, mostly of the macroeconomics variety. Modern day equivalents of alchemists, too, they are.

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k9disc's picture

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

@k9disc

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Thanks! Read and 'enjoyed' the linked Bill Moyers and both this and your linked essay on Syria, even if the subjects are depressing.

I'd read your older essay before, (although my rec evidently hadn't stuck, as seems fairly typical) but this time was particularly struck by one line:

... I assumed we paid taxes so that our leaders, and most particularly Democratic politicians, could fight to make life better for most Americans. ...

Neat State propaganda trick, that, making people think that taxes were paid by citizens so that part of their government could fight the rest of it to try - and fail - to make life better for the citizens the whole government exists to serve the interests of, while acting against them...

Once one considers the matter, that's merely - and, in retrospect, obviously - a requirement of propagandizing another chunk of the entire to-be-kept-quiescent-and-unaware population to fight their own self-interest to keep 'the other guy' down, so I should have anticipated the existence of the corollary but didn't, or at any rate, didn't gut-realize it, if that conveys my meaning. And I find that fact perhaps even scarier than the rest. Very difficult to fight the effects of propaganda when you don't even perceive them to take them into account...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Ellen North

and thought-provoking comments. I am sorry that I did not see them sooner. I had assumed incorrectly that the thread had run its course sooner than it did.

Very difficult to fight the effects of propaganda when you don't even perceive them to take them into account...

Your comment reminded me of the aphorism that it's not what you don't know that trips you up: it's what you don't know that you don't know.

Our system is wrong in so many ways. One of them is how complicit, compliant and coordinated members of mass media are with each other and with "the establishment." Even "Hollywood" or show business, ffs. It's tempting to say "now" or "modern day," but I am not so sure that is true. Look at the studios, Ronald Reagan, John Wayne, et al. during World War II. Look at Hitler and his version of "Hollywood," Goebbels and, most notably (because of her incredible skill), Leni Riefenstahl. (Anticipatory link: http://caucus99percent.com/content/breaking-repeal-godwins-law)

During a film course that I took when I lived in NY, the prof joked, "Hitler assumed he only had to defeat the United States. Had he known he had to beat Jack Warner, too, he would never have attempted it." We tend not to worry about that, even in hindsight, because World War II was one of the few wars I know about that should have been fought (assuming there was no narrower way to stop the Nazis).

But then, the McCarthy Era began (mostly on the strength of info that came into J.Edgar Hoover's hands during World War II) and the same studios began firing and blacklisting people and, I very much suspect, ratting them out to McCarthy, too. I don't know if anyone romanticized the Vietnam War in film or on TV, but, we've been back almost deifying the military again, both government and show business. And it gives me the shivers because we are always "at war" now. Maybe it was always like that. Maybe even in the days when ever traveling minstrels were the news source and only the court jester got to poke fun at the king. Anyway....

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed in 1953 for being Communist spies. Also in 1953, a new TV series began, about a man posing as an ordinary American, a US government agent and a Russian spy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Led_Three_Lives, not entirely dissimilar to The Americans, which began fifty years later and supposedly created by a CIA agent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(2013_TV_series) Meanwhile, news media was bizarrely consumed with whether shirtless Putin on his pony was a better leader than the "weak" (according to Republicans and FOX) Obama. And here we are in another "Russia is the Evil Empire" scare. Coincidence? Art imitating life? Art intentionally propagandizing, with or without collusion? Very likely, we'll never know.

Same for West Wing, a freakin' paean to an, um, imaginary third-way administration of a charismatic "pragmatic liberal" POTUS, produced by Lawrence O'Donnell. Also, Madame Secretary, produced by Morgan Freeman, staring the blond Tea Leoni, often playing her role pants-suited, which began airing as the nation got "Ready for Hillary." And, now, both left and right media are coordinated against Trump--not that he doesn't deserve it. But, I digress....(maybe)

My point is we are not typically aware that we are constantly engulfed in air and weighed down by gravity. Similarly, when government, media, new stories and entertainment are all sending us the same message, whether or not consciously coordinated, we do not notice that we are being propagandized.

Sorry for the long reply. Once I got going, ADD took me over....I do not have enough discipline of the kind required to edit down. Apologies.

ETA: My comment about I Led Three Lives has been edited to reflect irishking's comment below.

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@HenryAWallace @HenryAWallace

He was 1)ad exec who infiltrated CP as a 2)comsymp , but was he was really 3)working for the FBI.

His FBI contact's name was Jerry. The show was a big hit at my house.

small inaccuracy. your points about pervasiveness of propaganda (++).

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@irishking
the post despite my error. I edited the post and credited you.

I confess that I did not read the entire I Led Three Lives wiki before posting a link to it because the nits and grits of the show were not the point. However, I appreciate the correction because I truly hate posting disinformation, even about a point like that. So much so, that I rushed to edit my reply to Ellen before I finished reading your post.

Ad exec? Didn't know that, either. Figures. They were becoming a big thing in the minds of the public in the 1950s. So, Philbrick was the first of the Mad Men?

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@HenryAWallace

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@irishking

tired to do anything else" time. Got as far as the references to barbecue, also a big thing in the 1950s. Affordable housing for vets returning from WWII was built outside city centers, where real estate was pricey. Hence, "back yards" became available to many former city dwellers. Grilling and eating outdoors became widespread. The original grill plates were sectioned, usually into 3 parts. (This, I learned, believe it or not, from ebay, where I have learned a lot of history by looking at dinnerware. Some of the sellers do a little write up.) Frozen "TV dinners" followed suit.

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