How the Powers That Be Maintain the "Deep State"

[Karl Frederick]

I find the following interview with former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren an engaging commentary on how and why things go as they do on the national and international scene:

How the Powers That Be Maintain the "Deep State"

In The Deep State, author Mike Lofgren, whose 2011 commentary, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult," remains the most-read article at Truthout.org, connects the dots between apparently disparate aspects of our current dystopia. "The deep state," argues Lofgren is "the red thread" linking the "ideological syndrome" of McMansions; DC's culture of careerist strivers; the financialization, deindustrialization and ultimate mutation of the US economy into "a casino with a tilted wheel"; the burgeoning of government secrecy even as individual rivacy has been demolished; the consistency and persistence of unpopular policies regardless of which party wins elections; militarized foreign policy, "defense" and "security" establishments that thrive on failure and enjoy essentially unlimited funding whatever nostrums about the national debt and the necessity for austerity are being peddled for every other function of government; the prevalence of incompetence and ineptitude in government response to crises; unequal justice, including impunity for the wealthy and corporations, a corrupt Supreme Court and a strikingly punitive criminal legal system for ordinary people; legislative gridlock; perpetual war; political extremism and other ruinous epiphenomena.

Lofgren agreed to speak with retired Truthout editor Leslie Thatcher about his new book on January 27. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Read the interview:https://www.truth-out.org/progressiv...h-mike-lofgren