A Word or Two from Mike Lofgren

Today, as I was looking through what was happening on truth-out.org, I came across this article by MIke Lofgren discussing the climate of both political parties, putting blame and truth on both of them for where our country is and the direction that it is headed in.  If you need a little history about Mike Lofgren, then you would like to know that he was a Congressional Staffer for 28 years.  He retired from his life on Capitol Hill after looking objectively at what is happening to the GOP as well as our government  in general.  I took the time to read the article twice to make sure that I wasn’t missing any extremely subjective views and I feel that he does a great job of just being an observer and placing fault on both sides. I do suggest reading the footnotes first because it will place you in a state of just reading the article opposed to try to negate what he is saying. 

Here are two excerpts that I really enjoyed to help give you an idea of what you will be reading if you are thinking about it.

  • Historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of America since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class – without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. Their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking

 

  • It was not always thus. It would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. An unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the Rockefellers or the Mellons. But that is not the case in the present economic crisis. After a riot of unbridled greed such as the world has not seen since the conquistadors’ looting expeditions and after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by Wall Street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? At “Washington spending” – which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and Medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade’s corporate saturnalia. Or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.

 

To view the entire article, click here.  Please let me know your thoughts after you read it.  The purpose of posting this is to motivate thought on the climate of our national community.  This is necessary especially on a national holiday that celebrates rights that ironically, have been taken away in numerous states this past year. 

One Reply to “A Word or Two from Mike Lofgren”

  1. Hey Gregg Potter,

    Interesting…at least for political junkies like my self.

    I found your post while looking for more background on Mike Lofgren. I appreciate the circumspect manor that you take in your post with this “Truth-Out” — auto-bio/political insider commentary / exposé / whistle blower / ax to grind / truth teller / self promoter — second career – cable talking head guy… what ever it turns out to be when the dust settles — article.

    I wish to point out (not meaning to nit pick, but…I must, because it’s important) how you phrased a key matter in your lead in:
    “He retired from his life on Capitol Hill after looking objectively at what is happening
    to the GOP as well as our government in general.”
    “Looking objectively” is an assumption on your part. If you are quoting Mr. Lofgren’s assertion, then it needs to be put in quotes. After all, what do any of us know about his “objectivity” or anything else about him?

    The starting point in instances like this; where an unknown, apparently well connected individual pops into prominence with a super charged load (some might say, screed) of opinion and behind the scenes insight, is to begin with the first issue of importance, that is of his creditability.

    Truth is few know any of the details of the author’s work on Capitol Hill, at this early point of the story. So let us tread lightly and let it percolate, then we’ll see more clearly, and not find ourselves embarrassed having staked out a pre-mature opinion-position that has to be walked back later.

    He could turn out to be totally credible. Then what do we have really, but one man’s opinion. If it corroborates our preconceived conceptions, we tend to believe. If it runs counter, we tend to discount.

    Most of what he’s alleging is, frankly, the workings of high steaks national politics. Let’s not kid ourselves; it’s the way it works. Tell me any where these kinds of machinations don’t occur.

    Frankly he comes across disappointed and possibly hurt by some one or something within the GOP machinery, and seems to be venting. I’ve been there, at my own mini-level; pissed, disappointed, and seeing no alternative but to resign. However, choosing to make it public at this time and in this way is self serving, precisely because it comes off as wounded and is so easily discounted and or alternatively seized upon for crass political purposes. Especially, during the run up to a Presidential election season, where the incumbent is clearly vulnerable from the right and the left.

    I found several points of interest (taking him at face value) right off the top. In his LA Times article, he states:
    “President Barack Obama’s fiscal policies are a mess. Whatever one thinks of the need for stimulus in a severe recession, it is obvious that running trillion-dollar deficits for years on end is unsustainable. Moreover, his proposals are dishonest. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded that his proposed 2012 budget underestimates spending while overestimating revenues.”

    “Sadly, the Republicans have offered no viable alternative.”

    “The failure of our leaders to offer realistic budget proposals was a major reason I decided to retire after 28 years in Congress, most of them as a professional staff member on the Republican side of both the House and Senate Budget Committees. My party talks a good game, railing about the immorality of passing debt on to our children. But the same Congressional Budget Office that punctured Obama’s budget also concluded that the major policies that swung the budget from a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion in 2001 to the present 10-year deficit of $6.2 trillion were Republican in origin.”

    First; he states that “Obama’s fiscal policies are a mess” and “Moreover, his proposals are dishonest.” Striking indictment of one side of the debate, in and of it’s self alone.

    Then he proceeds directly on to state; that “the Republicans have offered no viable alternative.” Really…No Viable Alternative Proposals?

    OK, “viable” is an opinion as well as a wiggle word. Maybe he wasn’t around for Paul Ryan’s 2011 Budget Proposal. It was debated and passed in the House. I confess that I don’t know the Ryan Budget Proposal chapter and verse, but its mere existence certainly flies in the face of Mike Lofgren’s next statement. That “The failure of our leaders to offer realistic budget proposals was a major reason that I decided to retire…” Now, one may disagree with Ryan’s Budget Proposal, but to say “no alternative” and “failure to offer” can only lead one to wonder where Mr. Lofgren is coming from.

    If he thinks that the Ryan Budget is not viable or realistic, fine, but when one levels a charge like this of “leadership failure” in a time of “severe recession”, is it not then necessary to take a sentence or two and state why he has come to that conclusion? Convince me, or at least make an attempt. That’s all I ask.

    Having not done so, I find; on one side of Mr. Lofgren’s argument that “Obama’s fiscal policies are a mess” and his “dishonest proposals” (complete with CBO citations to that point).

    While on the Republican side of the scales; he presents a demonstrable false statement of a “failure of leadership” at the most, and an unsupported assertion of producing “no viable alternative.” at the least. How well do the two sides balance out?

    Is it just me, or does this come across as, not particularly “objective” or even credible? Where is there the moral equivalence, in this writer’s argument, to credibly say; both sides are at fault and acting like children, and that “perhaps it’s time for a party that is willing to step into the void.”?

    Well that’s as far as I’ve gotten at the moment. Lofgren is not off to a rousing start, as far as I’m concerned. He’s going to have to mount quite a come back to over come this weak start. He may, and I may find much to agree with…I’m just choking on the intellectually dishonest argumentation at the start…where you’re supposed to make the strongest arguments.

    Like your post, Potter…keep it up.

    More later, if I feel like it, after it get to the “truth-out” thing.
    -Michael

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