Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit


A GUIDE TO WHITEWATER

By Sam Marcy

Once again, as has happened so many times in U.S. history, the
issue of political corruption in the highest echelons of the
capitalist government has come to the fore.

It is of no use for Marxists to simply join the cacophony of loud
and discordant voices calling for removal of this or that
government official accused of criminal misconduct. But it is
very important for Marxists to outline an independent
working-class approach, which differs fundamentally from that of
the ruling class.

The ruling class, above all, is most concerned with hiding its
own complicity in the corruption. The ruling class seeks to
distance itself from any revelations of corruption. By virtue of
its monopoly of the capitalist press and the ownership of the
means of production in general, it seeks to completely divest
itself of any and all kinds of ties it has with the criminal
elements themselves.

This it cannot always do. The really huge criminal groupings in
the U.S. must have friendly banks where they can deposit their
illegal income.

Our concern at the present time, however, is not so much with the
relationship of crime and corruption to capitalism in general.
Rather, it is how and why the ruling class may at particular
moments not only discredit its own most devoted capitalist
politicians, but even attempt to remove them. This includes the
president, if he stands in the way of an important objective
sought by either the ruling class as a whole or a key section of
it.

PRESIDENTIAL SCANDALS

At the present time the Clinton administration is in a somewhat
perilous situation. Hanging over its head is the Whitewater
matter, in which he and Hillary Rodham Clinton are intimately
involved.

Judging by the character of the charges--especially when one
considers that it all took place when Clinton was governor and
not president--the matter seems small potatoes indeed. This is
especially so in comparison with the charges made against
previous presidents--Warren Harding with the Teapot Dome scandal,
Richard Nixon with Watergate, and others.

One wonders why such a violent attack is opened against him at a
time when Clinton is eager to do almost everything the ruling
class or any of its factions demands of him. It was not long ago
that the head of the Federal Reserve took it on himself to not
only meet with Clinton but to publicly and even ostentatiously
show solidarity with him in a significant photo session. That's
unusual for a chairperson of the Federal Reserve. It could not
have escaped the attention of Clinton's critics.

So why this campaign, and why now?

To understand the significance of corruption cases involving the
capitalist government itself, it is necessary to go beyond an
examination of the charges. One must seek out the fundamental
political issues hiding behind them. This is the Marxist
approach.

WHAT ARE THE CONCEALED ISSUES?

Merely coming out against corruption, or being a more vigorous,
persistent critic, is not enough. It is necessary to carefully
search out whether indeed there is any political or economic
issue behind it. Does one or another faction of the ruling class
have a concealed interest in the corruption struggle?

It is, of course, possible that there may not be any significant
political difference or factional strife behind the scandal.

Look at all the hue and cry raised against Reagan and Bush in the
Iran-contra affair. Both of them clearly and contemptuously
violated a law that specifically forbade the president from
dealing with Iran for the release of U.S. prisoners. They went
ahead and did it anyway, in open defiance of the law.

The ruling class as a whole, despite clamorous demands made here
and there by some capitalist politicians, stood by both Reagan
and Bush. This made it impossible for the independent prosecutor,
Lawrence Walsh, to charge or convict them of criminal conduct.

A consensus was apparently reached in ruling-class circles: to
convict only the underlings of the Reagan administration. This
was done in such a way that none of the important figures
convicted actually served time.

Walsh himself had to publicly admit that he would not proceed
against a president or vice president. That, he claimed, would
impinge upon or destroy an important aspect of capitalist
politics: to preserve the presidency as a hallowed and
above-the-fray institution not unlike a bourgeois monarchy in
Europe or Asia. The imperialist governments in the West as well
as in Japan make sure to maintain the halo of objectively
representing all the people--meaning all the ruling-class
factions.

Retaining this symbol of class unity facilitates the oppression
of the masses.

WALSH AND IRAN-CONTRA

The independent prosecutor found himself in a position where he
had at all costs to uphold the dignity of the imperialist
presidency--especially since the earlier Nixon Watergate
situation had already discredited it. Walsh had to find a way to
proceed without tarnishing this symbol of capitalist class unity.

Willingly or unwillingly, he had to absolve both Reagan and
Bush--despite the patently obvious way they violated the law
Congress had just passed and President Reagan himself had signed.

Walsh had to find a way to absolve Bush and Reagan, to present
them as honest people. His task was similar to that of the
ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes. Diogenes, lantern in hand,
went out on his famous "search for an honest man" in broad
daylight. He found none. But Walsh is not exactly a prototype of
Diogenes.

Diogenes agitated against the rich, land-holding, slave-holding
aristocracy in 4th-century B.C. Greece. Legend holds that he
championed the ascetic life--a form of struggle for a return to
primary (primitive) communism. His search for an honest man, in
the context of a slave-holding society, could only lead to
frustration.

But Diogenes continued his search, lantern in hand in broad
daylight. He thereby demonstrated that there were no honest men
in the slave-holding aristocracy of that period.

And this is what our independent investigator had to accomplish.
He had to show that these two were honest men, despite their
criminal conduct.

CLINTON AND WHITEWATER

What is it about President Clinton that roils sections of the
ruling class?

Is it his and Hillary Clinton's conduct in relation to the
Whitewater development company and the Madison Guaranty savings
and loan that funded it? Could that really be a significant
issue? Could it really warrant calling for a broad congressional
inquiry? Even some Democratic senators such as Patrick Moynihan
of New York have called for an investigation. But is that what
really concerns them?

What is really involved here? What happened to the Whitewater
company is really a piddling matter. What is really involved is a
course of conduct and ensuing developments of many persons in
relation to the several hundred savings-and-loan banks that
failed, were put up for sale, and were then sold under
circumstances that warrant a great deal of discussion.

The issue is not the depositors in the failed banks. The bulk of
the depositors--those with under $100,000--
were compensated. The issue is the investors.

Who were they? Were they hundreds of small individual investors?
Or were they the big banks? What has been their involvement, up
until now, in the struggle to recoup their losses?

It is impossible that only the Clintons were connected with the
failed banks. Judging by accounts of their financial situation,
their investment, if any, was marginal. But there are enormous
interests whose investments went up in smoke.

Any attempt at compensation or resale of the banks' vast
properties would necessitate federal intervention. All this would
clearly point toward Clinton, as president, taking action if any
were contemplated.

The complications involved in this are enormous. Is this what the
big banks would want? Whatever may be done, it is clearly a
momentous issue in politics and in high finance. It is not
possible to open up an initiative to revive interest in the
failed banks without involving the president as the chief
executive.

Does the issue of compensating the investors who lost money lurk
behind the current struggle? Is it possible that the president,
by executive order, could call for reopening the issue of the
failed banks? Who would be for that, and who would be against it?
These are some of the problems.

BILLIONS INVOLVED IN S&L COLLAPSE

We must assume that behind the corruption charges against Clinton
are other, more fundamental, issues. And the failure of several
hundred savings-and-loan banks, with billions of dollars, is a
matter that must deeply concern some key monopoly capitalists.

Even if he had never had any connection with the banks at all,
the question would still arise: Is it not proper for the
president to look into the matter of the several hundred failed
savings-and-loan banks?

There is the question of the president's role in retrieving
losses sustained as a result of the banks' collapse. Notice how
quickly and correctly President Clinton assured residents in the
Los Angeles area of support after the earthquake. It would not be
unusual for a president to reopen the cases of the failed banks.
It all depends upon which ruling-class faction would gain by it
and which would lose.

In examining the corruption charges against Clinton, it is these
material issues representing the interests of groupings within
the capitalist establishment that have to be examined. Of course,
the representatives of the banks and the capitalist politicians
know a great deal about this.

The duty of Marxists is to tear away the veil of secrecy and
factional politics and bring out the real issues regarding the
material interests of monopoly groups. If one of the groups is
seeking Clinton's resignation or ouster, does that signify it is
relying on Vice President Albert Gore? Or is it going to be like
the Nixon corruption case? Nixon was disqualified only to be
replaced by Spiro Agnew, who in turn was disqualified until the
bourgeoisie got the kind of representative they wanted: Gerald
Ford.

There are no foreign policy issues involved in this particular
case. It is strictly a question of resolving a struggle among
conflicting groups in the capitalist establishment. Nor is it
possible for any one of the capitalist groupings, however large,
to be able to get its way more or less completely, in view of the
sharp inner conflicts among themselves.

The best of all developments would be for an independent
investigation by the labor movement, by representatives of the
working-class and progressive organizations. Their concern would
be the interests of the working class, the oppressed
nationalities in particular, and how the course of the struggle
should be conducted from here on.

                               -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted
if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World,
55 West 17 St., New York, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@blythe.org.)

+----------------------------------------------------------------+
+ 212-675-9690      NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE     212-675-9663 +
+           Since 1985: Information for the Rest of Us           +
+ e-mail: nyt@blythe.org                   info: info@blythe.org +