16 February 1999
The impeachment proceedings against U.S. president Bill Clinton have finally ended. Virulent Republican Party leaders were unable to convince their own elected members, so necessary to establish a two-thirds majority for impeachment, to back the cause.Those attacking Bill Clinton claimed that he dragged the highest held political post in the U.S. through the mud because he lied under oath. They tried to claim the moral highground. The media jumped on the story with all the lurid details of a sex scandal - crude revelations of adultery, oral sex, nightly visitations, the infamous blue dress with semen stains and the infamous cigar scenario.
Defenders of Clinton portrayed it as a right-wing attack against liberalism. Some claimed it was a conspiracy. For instance, author Gore Vidal wrote that:
The current attacks on the Clintons are simply warning strikes, warnings to other politicians: Don't touch our wealth. (Progressive, October 1998)
This mystification has even been taken up by marginal left-wing groups. For instance, the Editorial Board of the Trotskyist grouping, the International Committee for the Fourth International, say it was "A political conspiracy, hatched by extreme right-wing and fascistic elements in and around the Republican Party, [that] came very close to effecting a political coup d'etat." ("Impeachment trial ends, but the conspiracy", 13 February 1999, World Socialist Web Site)
It is difficult for Socialists to perceive Bill Clinton and the Democrats as any threat to the "owners of wealth".
The disagreements between Democrats and Republicans are not about the system of wealth and how it is produced at all. It is a disagreement on how to run the system to keep capital firmly entrenched and profitable. In fact, Clinton's presidential address at the beginning of the year envisioned crumbs for the elderly working class by "saving" Social Security. Meanwhile, military spending would be increased on an enormous scale. Clinton does not even make a convincing liberal "New Deal" Democrat.
Make no mistake. Clinton, in this era of the catchphrase "globalization", wants to protect U.S. corporate profitability -- by armed force if necessary. There is no threat to wealth here.
The decay of politics at the highest levels of U.S. politics is evident. Clinton lying about his personal sexual relations is considered abhorrent. Lying about the reasons behind bombing Iraq or bases in Afghanistan and Sudan, is never questioned. In that, the Republicans are in complete agreement.
This was no right-wing conspiracy. If there was, then it was a conspiracy of the backrooms, of palace politics. It might more aptly be called the politics of irrationalism since it has no bearing or worth for the vast majority - the working class. The polls consistently showed that this immense majority simply didn't care about the issue.
The supposed "coup" against Clinton can be likened to England's War of the Roses in 1455. There, two royal families competed for the throne of England. The decisive win mattered little to the common folk below.
The shenanigans of both Democrats and Republicans in this sorry controversy has turned more people away in disillusionment with politics in general. It's left them with a bad taste in their mouths and one can hear it on the streets - politicians cannot be trusted, all politicians lie, politics can be ignored. The attitudes are understandable.
Socialists do not advocate that people abstain from politics. Politics does
matter. But, unlike others, we hold that the decisive question is not which
minority of politicians will administer capitalism and how they will tinker
with the decrepit system. We need not rely on politicians. Our proposition
is that the system itself must be replaced. And that can only be
accomplished by the democratic, conscious act of the vast majority.