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High crimes and misdemeanours e-mail <International_Viewpoint@compuserve.com>
USA The release of Kenneth Starr's report on President Clinton has set off a media storm. Hypocrisy and puritanism has drowned out others issues, from the spreading world economic crisis to the predictable debacle of America's "welfare reform" Barry Sheppard
International Viewpoint
Starr's report was turned over to the Judiciary Committee of the Republicancontrolled House of Representatives, which will make a recommendation to the House as a whole whether to proceed with impeachment hearings. If after these hearings the House should vote for impeachment, then the Senate will hold a trial on whether Clinton should be removed from office or not.
A high point in this media blitz was supposed to be the release of a video tape, played on television around the world, of
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Clinton's testimony to the grand jury concerning his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. But it turned out to be a dud. Nothing new was revealed. The great majority of people in the US already knew about the affair, and about Clinton's attempts to deny it. A big majority think Clinton lied about it, but also think he shouldn't be forced from office, even if he lied under oath.
Viewers who saw the video tape were confronted with a four-hour interrogation. Clinton was asked details of exactly what
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kind of sex he had with Lewinsky - for example, how did Clinton's semen get on Lewinsky's dress?
One New York Times columnist said "the Starr report already resembles the surveillance records of a private detective. The grand jury deposition puts us, aesthetically speaking, in the position of watching a police interrogation. Many who watch this spectacle will surely imagine themselves in the same chair and wonder just how forthrightly they would react to similar grilling...
"Granted, this is not... the Moscow trials of the 1930s. Unlike... Nikolai Bukharin, Mr. Clinton will physically survive this process. But the intent to destroy him politically is no less evident".
Another New York Times writer says, "Today, when you turn on the Sunday 'news programmes, you might be watching Mr. Starr's prosecutors rehearsing They sound like a crowd at an auto-de-fé, a burning at the stake in the Inquisition"
If they can do this to the President, what could they do to you or me? Most people have lied some time about their sex lives, and most are embarrassed about at least some things they have done sexually. And most don't want prosecutors to be prying into their private affairs.
Starr is connected with the Christian Right in the Republican party. He has presumably focused on the Lewinsky attair, rather than on the Clintons' shady financial deals, because he cannot find proof -a "smoking gun" - in these other inquiries.
But there is another side to Starr's motivation. The Christian Right wants to shift attention to its favourite "moral"
issues, which are often connected to sexuality. They want to completely outlaw abortion. They want to enforce "sodomy"
laws against gay men, and overturn any equal treatment legislation for homosexuals. Divorce should be made more difficult — abolished if possible. Women should recognise their husbands as their natural superiors and God-ordained heads of the household
The Christian Right are against the separation of church and state, and want to reintroduce religious education into the schools — their religion, of course. Evolution should not be taught. They want the
US to become a fundamentalist Christian
By raising Clinton's sexual misconduct, they hope to further their claim that the country has gone down hill morally, under the influence of the movements that sprung from the 1960s and 70s, including the women's liberation movement, the gay and lesbian rights movement, and the relatively greater freedom from sexual repression that has developed since then.
The decisive sections of the ruling class have found it convenient to rely on the Christian Right as a battering ram against gains made by women, gays, blacks and others, but they by no means wish to put the Christian Right in power at this historical juncture, if ever.
Also, Clinton has done a good job from the point of view of big business and Wall Street. Whether Clinton is thrown out of office or not, which at this point seems unlikely, the powers that be will also clip Starr's wings. Though they will presumably keep this particular brand of reactionaries around, to help get out the vote for more right wing politicians, and pull the ideological struggle to the right.
Clinton still gets high marks from most people for "how he does his job" while most take a dim view of him as a person. Americans tend to favour incumbents when the economy is doing good. (The growing economic storm world-wide threatens the US economy, but the effect hasn't yet been felt by most Americans.) This isn't the 1970s, when the US was in a war, with US soldiers coming home dead and disabled. So — "don't rock the boat" is a widespread political philosophy.
Of course, Clinton has played the "soft cop" to the Republican's "hard cop". He has moved the Democratic Party to the right and essentially adopted the Republican domestic programme.
For example, many in his party supported, and he signed, the Republican's law eliminating welfare as a federal right. Though he did criticise the harsher aspects of the law, such as requiring the states to throw many immigrants off the welfare rolls. So he looks to be more compassionate about the poor than the Republicans.
The Republicans are seen as anti-union and anti-worker. While doing very little for the unions, Clinton and the Democrats still have union leaders' support.
The Republicans make no bones about their disregard for blacks. Most are against affirmative action. Bill Clinton's support among blacks is especially high. His close personal friend, Vernon Jordon, is black, as is his personal secretary, Betty Currie.
Clinton is formally for affirmative action
- though not if this "penalises" whites.
But when the issue was on the ballot in
California, he hardly said anything, and the anti-affirmative action initiative won.
While the Republicans are against abortion, Clinton more or less supports the right to choose. He has vetoed some very bad bills that many Democrats supported along with the Republicans.
Even many Republican voters don't think he should be thrown out of office for his affair and lying about it.
The Constitution says that a President can be impeached and tried for high crimes and misdemeanours".
The present noise about the Lewinsky affair actually diverts attention from the real high crimes and misdemeanours of
Clinton and his Republican predecessors.
Little things like bombing Iraq and threatening to do it again, tightening the blockade of Cuba, sending cruise missiles into Afghanistan and the Sudan, arming dictators like Suharto in Indonesia and and presiding imperialist globalisation that is destroying the lives of hundreds of millions around the world, and that threatens the entire world itself. * contents americas
2 USA: High crimes and misdemeanours
• Barry Sheppard
USA: Lessons from the GM strike
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USA/Mexico: the Han Young
6 campaign • MLNA europe
Europe's labour left
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European appeal for trade union
8 left • Document
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13 Russia: the force of inertia • Boris
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14 Poland: OPZZ - the ability to mobilise • Dalej!
14 Poland: Anti-Semitism in 1968
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¡feature
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18 Malaysia: Winds of change
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20 Malaysia: Neoliberal reformasi?
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22 Australia: election report
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23 Sri Lanka: Sinhala left reconsiders support for war • LSSP statement
24 Japan: Big vote for Communists
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26 Israel: "Boycott settlers" says
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28 The situation in Congo
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29 Lesotho: South Africa's shame
• WOSA statement regular features
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