for their political support and strikebreaking raids on militant unions like the United Farm Workers, Scandals thut were once only laid at the door of the governsent by the far left are now being ethnic and national minorities in the country. pirood there by the most respectable representatives of the press. Many more peopie are beginning to ask about the role of state agencies in such things as the assassinations of John Red Weekly 6 July 1973 Page 4 political tool for this section of the ruling class. Johnson's domestic policies - bound by the traditional political base of the Democrats -tried to pacify the, white liberals and the Nixon's 1968 victory give the "cowboys" con trol in domestic as well as foreign matters. Nixon and the Republicens provided a regime totally tailored to the needs of this group
The press, the liberals and the constitutionalists" are equally worried about the stability of American politics, but are not so concerned with keeping Nixon and the Republicans in power, Press commentators concentrate their fire on the peculiar prychology of Nixon and his entourage. Their solution is for Nixon to Tire his advisers and "come clean" with the American people, promising not to do it again. Nixon himself explains it all by the misguided LURIEcit pet, Just as aroused public opinion cannot be wished away. Nixon must try and convince the Senate commission that he was not guilty of involvement in Watergate, Unfortunately for Nixon, the man he chose to play his scapegoat, Dean, has refused to go along with the gime. If Dean can offer sufficient evidence that Nixon was in the thick of Watergate, then Nixon's days are numbered. But even if his testimony does not offer ironclad proof of of uffice in some other system. The President is directly elected by the votes of the whole clectorate and holds office for a fixed number of years, Unlike under some republican set ups, the American President is not a figurehead: be seeds the men who make up his execulive (the government) and they are directly and totaily responsible to him.
The President 'is thus the key element in the whole capitalist state machine. For these reasons his power is considerable, and he has traditionally been viewed as above suspicion and party-political self-interest. There has been only one attempt to impeach an American President (remove him from office) and that — over one hundred years ago — did not succeed.
If the splits in the ruling class over this issue go any deeper, or if Nixon ssould decide to fight back against a concerted move by the ruling class to cut their losses and throw him overboard, a really deep political crisis would be triggered off in the American political system. For this reason, the ruling class remains hesitant and uncertain at the moment. There is no obvious alternative President who could take on the difficult task of heating the split and redeeming the image of American politics in the wake of Nixon. Watergate will produce a very serious weakening in the central element of the slate-executive power. And that problem simply cannot be overcome in the short term by either of the main political parties, or by strengthening some other element in the state system, such as Congress. This becomes very serious in view of the fact that the ruling chss must face up to a number of urgent decisions in the months ahead. Firstly, there is the problem of growing international economic competition: what to do about the balance of trade, the problems of the world monctary system, the need to improve the competitiveness of US industry. Secondly, there are a series of tricky international policy questions: the new military, political and coonomic relationships with Russin and China; the still festering sore of Indochina. Thirdly, there is the unsolved domestic problem of spiralling inflation, which both threatens American business activity abroad and opens up the prospect of serious. class conflict on the home front. Finally, the threat of a world capitalist recession is looming on the horizon for 1974.
What is lacking at the moment is any serious Jokr Dean - spiding all the beans about the Harergare affair.
Despite the treachery of the misleaders of Inbour, significant sections of the working class and other oppressed groups have moved into atruggle recently. In April and May, housewives organised nationally against soaring food prices, forcing the closure of many supermarkets and meatpacking plants becaise of their boycolt of meat. There has been a big growth of activity by welfare recipients, social workers, teachers and other government employees, who have all suffered tramn Nixon's cutbacks in government spending.
Perhaps most significantly, there have been im isa fion of the rank-and-file of the trade union movement. In many unions rank-and-file cancuses have sprung up to fight for union democ racy and to oppose the sell-out deals of the trade union bureaucrats. In April thousands of trade unionists from southern California took to the streets in San Francisco to demonstrate their opposition to intlation, the wage freeze, and NIxon's socki services cut