Harry Targ
The Deep State
Mike Lofgren defines the “deep
state” as “… a hybrid association of
elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is
effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent
of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.” (Mike Lofgren, “Anatomy of the ‘Deep State’:
Hiding in Plain Sight,” Online University
of the Left, February 23, 2014).
Others have examined invisible power structures, including class, that
rule America (from C. W. Mills’ classic The
Power Elite, Oxford University Press, 2000 to Robert Perrucci, Earl Wysong,
and David Wright, The New Class Society:
Goodbye American Dream? Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).
The concept, “deep state,” describes
the hidden policy-making process, particularly in foreign policy. It suggests that
power to make critical decisions resides not in the superstructure of the
political process; the place were competitive games are played for all to see,
but in powerful institutions embedded in society that can make decisions
without requiring popular approval. In foreign policy the “deep state”
apparatus has led the American people into war or covert interventions that
destroyed the rights of people in other countries to solve their own problems.
In the end these hidden institutions have involved the United States in death
and destruction all across the globe.
The idea of the deep state may be
useful as a metaphor to alert the citizenry to policies that also are made
mostly in secret, or if not in secret at least with very limited public
visibility, in the states as well as in the federal government. Policy
decisions of consequence made among semi-secret elites may concern issues that do
not involve the high politics of foreign policy. Sometimes public policy
decisions, made by powerful, but invisible groups, are only announced or
uncovered after they are made. Opponents of policies adopted by deep state
institutions become more difficult to challenge because decisions have already
been made and appear irreversible.
The Mysterious “Real Alternatives” Contract
With the State of Indiana
For example, on October 15, Governor
Mike Pence of Indiana announced that Indiana had signed a $3.5 million contract
for one year of anti-abortion counseling with Real Alternatives, a
multi-million dollar non-profit organization. The contract would be funded by
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) money. He reported that Real
Services has a “pro-life mission.” It does not provide advice concerning
contraception and most women’s reproductive health services. Its goal is to
“actively promote childbirth instead of abortion.” The Governor indicated that
this contract follows a prior one year $1 million pilot program carried out in
Northern Indiana. He claimed that the contract provides important health
services for women and families. The stated purpose of RA is to “actively
promote childbirth instead of abortion.” The CEO of Indiana Right to Life
praised the pilot program and the new contract.
What
Is “Real Alternatives” and Where Did It Come From?
It turns out that Real Alternatives is among a
growing industry of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPC) that have sprung up around
the country to oppose abortions, contraception, and family planning. Jenny
Kutner (“How Crisis Pregnancy Centers Are Using Taxpayer Dollars to Lie to
Women,” Salon, July 14, 2015) points
out that there are three times more CPCs than abortion clinics. They do provide
some modest services, such as pregnancy tests, some basic childcare resources, and
diapers for new born children of poor women. However, CPC services are
typically “…misleading, manipulative or downright coercive, pushing a
distinctly antiabortion agenda that relies heavily on lying to clients.” CPC
counsellors are usually religious and misrepresent themselves as healthcare
professionals.
At least 11 states provide millions of dollars to
fund largely religiously-based CPCs. One of the largest CPC organizations, Real
Alternatives, began operations in Pennsylvania in the 1990s. Former Democratic
Governor Robert P. Casey put RA services in the state budget to actively oppose
abortions. Over the years the state’s support for RA came from the
legislature’s “pro-life” caucus and was followed by public money being used by
the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare to fund Morning Star Pregnancy
Services and the Pennsylvania Alternative to Abortion Services Program. By 1997
72 CPCs received public reimbursements.
Support for RA spread to other states but Pennsylvania’s
former Senator Rick Santorum failed in his effort to introduce the Women and
Children’s Resources Act to fund CPC programs like RA in 1999, which would have
been a federally-funded program. RA gave support to parallel CPCs in Florida,
Wisconsin, and North Dakota. In 2001 Pennsylvania support for RA increased and the
program was funded by moneys from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
program. By 2011, the RA model was used to establish anti-choice services in
Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Nebraska, Louisiana, South Dakota, and in 2014 Indiana.
Pence said that “We fund Real Alternatives because it’s the right thing to do!
We know that the work that you all do is critical to making Pennsylvania a
better place. We know that what you do every day is making a tremendous
difference in the lives of our children and families.”
The
Deep States and the Anti-Choice Agenda
While so-called right-to-life groups are aware of
CPCs and particularly the work of RA, most of the public had little knowledge
of the pilot Indiana program. In addition, aside from a brief report on
Indianapolis television, the Pence extension of the RA program with public money received little
attention. The small but determined opponents of the right of women to control
their bodies, including particularly religious organizations, create semi-public
organizations such as RA and then set about building support among the
political class to gain state funding for their efforts. By the time the public
is aware of the state funding, it is too late to mobilize adequate political
opposition.
In the case of RA, and most CPCs, state funding is
in violation of the separation of church and state and the Supreme Court
decision in Roe v. Wade. Progressives need to become familiar with the “deep
state,” those semi-invisible centers of power that shape the public policy
agenda and at the same time work
against policies that challenge the fundamental rights of all citizens.
