loyalty of his associates, and defends the extensions of his power as necessary for national security. The Senate investigation commission, and most of the ruling class, accept this, and are only worried about Nixon's involvement in Watergate and the excessive growth of Presidential power.
Trouble ahead But the network of corruplion that has been unveiled cannot now be swept under the Improsepient at Nixon's Son Clemene(pictured here and Key Biseryue retreats Nixon's involvement it will certainly implicate Nixon's "palace guard' and provide damaging circumstantal evidence that will weaken Nixon's position still further, If this happens other members of the Nixon mob might decide to squeal, producing yet another tre mour under the foundations of the White House:
Despite the hostility of sections of the ruling class to Nixon, his fate is a matter that concerns all of them. It is a much higger step to remove a President from office in a system like the American, than it is to force a government our intervention into the situation by either the organised labour movement or lhe American Jeft. The real actors in the drama so far bave been various representatives of the capitalist class: the press, Congress, the judiciary. There may be a struggle over pubtic opition" ,to stir it up, win it over, or calm it down. Bur there is no attempt to channel the growing discontest away from the existing political institutions and give it some forn of independent, mass expression.
The Democratic Party would normally be able Lo harness the pobtical dissacistaction that Watergate has unleashed and lead it back along electoral lines into the institutions of the cup italist state. But the divisions within the Democratic Party make it incapable of playing this traditional role. There is a growing political vacuum, at the very centre of capitalist politics itself, The most serious absence is that of the Americin trade unions. Thee capitulation is all the more shocking, given the overall situation in the U.5. today. A number of major wage claims are coming up and inflation is taking place at a fastcurate than any lime since Work WarD. Sonte of the most important unions, notably the Teamsters and the building workers' unions, are directly tied to the Nixon regime and the Republican Party. But even unions like those of the Steel workers and the Rubher workers, which have a tradition of militance, bave recently signed contracts binding on their members for three years. These contain no strike guaranfees for the three years of the agreement, and extensive productivity concessions whuch will inevitably produce widespread redundancies, all in exchange for wage rises which don't even match the present level of inflation. This complete degeneration of the labour bures ucrucy stems from their total acceptance of the capitwast system which leads them to support meas wes to ensure the profitability of private industry, even though these measures mean cutting the throats of their own members, For loo many yeurs the federal government and the Democratic Party have been considered the representatives of the oppressed and exploited There is now the real possibility of a mass movement that would break out of these channels and mobilise the mass of Americans inde pendently from the capitalist political system. A mass movement to force Nixon out of office and to demand punishment of all those revegled as guilty of corruption couki start this procoss off. Such a movement would weaken the posidon of the ruling cass and cook offer a way Tor ward for the working class movement, now caught in the dead end of bureaucratic dominaMIRACLES tion, by linking up with the struggles of the working class against inflation, the wages freeze, and the social service cuts, This in turn would lay the basis for an independent organis atson uf the masses, the esabryo of popular power, ourside the capitalise state and party structures, Red Weakly 6 July 1973 Page 5