American Power Fight
Before leaving for the summer holidays, US congressmen made a sensational decision: bring US President Barack Obama to justice. The resolution of the House of Representatives was approved on the eve of the 40 anniversary of the departure of Richard Nixon from the presidency of the United States under the threat of impeachment during the so-called "Watergate scandal."
Their morals
The events that are still being remembered began on the night of 16 on 17 on June 1972, when the security guard of the Watergate Hotel in Washington, Frank Wills, discovered that outsiders had infiltrated the hotel. He called the police. When he and the three policemen determined that some people had entered the Democratic Party’s election headquarters located in the hotel, they moved into this room. In the dark, the police saw the vague outlines of a figure. One of the guards shouted: "Hands up!". To the surprise of the cops, ten hands were raised.
At first, this event received only meager media coverage. In the New York Times, a short note was published under the heading: "Five are accused of breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic Party." The metropolitan newspaper "Washington Post" described this incident in little more detail. No one was surprised when it soon became clear that the burglars were not robbers, but people connected with the election headquarters of the Republican Party. They tried to photograph the documents of their political opponents and put eavesdropping equipment at their headquarters.
Since at that time in the United States there was an election campaign for the election of the president of the country, such incidents did not look out of the ordinary. During any election campaigns in the United States, it is not uncommon for spying on opponents, the theft of confidential documents that compromise them, the wide publication of these, as well as blatantly deceptive materials hitting the reputation of politicians. During the election campaigns to eliminate political opponents, they often resorted to arms.
Shooting at presidential candidates continued during the 1972 election campaign of the year.
Just a month before the raid on the Democrats' premises in Watergate 15 in May 1972, the former Alabama governor, Democratic candidate George Wallace was seriously injured. As a result of the injury, he was paralyzed and left the election campaign.
Shortly before this 27 shot in April, 1972 took out his candidacy for the presidency of the most powerful Democratic candidate, Senator Edmund Muskie. Although the masks were not shot by bullets, but the charges of dirty propaganda that fell into him brought him out of the main political contest of the country.
During the "primaries" (primary) held in New Hampshire in February 1972, Republican agents called the white citizens of the state in the middle of the night and informed them that Edmund Muskie would fiercely protect the black population of the country from the oppression of white racists. Since there are few blacks among the state's population, such agitation caused only irritation of the overwhelming majority of the state's population. Other Republican agents spread lies about the fact that Senator Muskie abusively called people from Canada, of whom there were many in New Gapshire. The local newspaper, Union Leader, reported that Muskie’s wife loves to tell obscene jokes.
This campaign has touched the senator for a living. He drove up to the editorial office of the newspaper "Union Leader" in the truck and, taking a megaphone, began to publicly expose the lies of his opponents. Around the car there were cameras and microphones of television studios and radio stations. But in the midst of fiery speech, the senator's nerves could not stand it, and he ... burst into tears. The next day, the United States began to put up posters with the words: "If you do not vote for Masks, he will cry."
Before the March primaries in Florida, Republicans distributed letters among voters calling for voting for Masks, as well as accusations of discrediting their sexual ties with other Democratic candidates for the presidency - H. Humphrey and G. Jackson. The information given in the letters caused a burning interest. At the same time, the recipients of the letters were confident that the initiator of the distribution of these letters was Masks himself. Thus, three Democratic candidates were struck at once.
As a result of the exit from the game of Mask and Wallace, undermining the reputation of Humphrey and Jackson, Senator George McGovern became the greatest chance of becoming a rival to the candidate of the Republican Party of President R. Nixon. He was significantly inferior in terms of his business qualities and popularity of Muskie and other candidates, and yet people from the Nixon election headquarters made several attempts to put a wiretap at the headquarters for the election of McGovern, and then set about preparing to penetrate the Democrats headquarters in Watergate. And soon
The sophisticated efforts of Nixon and his supporters to eliminate competitors were largely due to the fact that election success was never easy for him. In the 1952 elections, allegations of receiving illegal funds almost forced him to withdraw his candidacy for the post of vice-president of the United States. He did not succeed in defeating John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, although he lacked a fraction of a percentage of the votes to succeed. In 1962, Nixon failed during the election campaign for the governor of California. His victory in the presidential election of 1968 of the year over Democratic nominee H. Humphrey was achieved with only a small margin.
Nixon's failures were largely due to the fact that a purposeful propaganda campaign was often carried out against him and he was often the victim of dirty tricks.
A whole army of professional journalists and propaganda masters worked against Nixon. Therefore, in the actions to destroy his opponents in 1972, Nixon only resorted to the same methods that were used against him.
Mining section
For two centuries of the existence of "American democracy", US citizens have become accustomed to dirty methods of election campaigning. Many of them follow the ups and downs of pre-election fights with the same interest as matches in championships in various sports.
In November, 1972, the country learned about the phenomenal victory of Richard Nixon over his rival - George McGovern. 47,1 million people voted for Nixon, or more than 60% of all who participated in the vote. McGovern received only 29,1 million votes, or 37% of those who voted. These results predetermined the triumph of the Nixon supporters in the electoral college. Almost all states in the country elected Nixon supporters (520) as electors. McGovern succeeded only in Massachusetts with 17 electors.
Although every year fewer and fewer Americans participate in elections, many of them still have illusions that on election day they will elect not only his president, but also dictate the country's foreign and domestic policy, social spending, development education and much more. . They do not even suspect what is actually happening after the announcement of the voting results.
In his biography of US President F.D. Roosevelt famous historian-Americanist N.N. Yakovlev explained how “American democracy” works after electoral passions subsided: “Among the benefits that a major post in the federal government brings with it in the United States, participation in the leadership of the“ mining section ”gives an opportunity to reward the loyal like-minded people and make new friends. The winning party is distributing posts in the system of federal authorities. "
Similarly, there was a "production split" in 1972. Each owner of a “warm place” is associated with a group of people close to him, each of whom can significantly enrich themselves by obtaining the cherished government contracts, access to the most profitable sources of the economy, to the most valuable information and to making decisions on all the most significant issues of the country's development. The finalists of the political competitions that take place each year, get the opportunity to control the richest country in the world, its economy, its domestic and foreign policy.
The ongoing struggle between the most influential economic and political groups for the possession of this prize is implicitly, but sometimes it spills to the surface.
When the unwritten rules of "American democracy" are violated
At the same time, the unspoken rules of "American democracy" are aimed at not violating political stability in the country. These unwritten rules limit the degree of control of a group over the United States. It is for this reason that the ruling circles of the United States could not allow the continuous presence of the Kennedy family in power and its associated forces for a quarter of a century in the event of the permanent victories of three brothers in the presidential election since 1960. But John Kennedy’s victory in the 1960 election of the year was not overwhelming, and therefore representatives from the opposition, the Republican party were introduced to his government. The crushing victory of Nixon in 1972 of the year opened him the opportunity to disregard his opponents. Not only Nixon himself, but also people from his administration did not think about sharing with defeated rivals. They resolutely invaded all spheres of the economic, social and political life of the country.
The behavior of Nixon after the election of 1968, in which he hardly defeated his opponent and therefore considered his real political weight, did not disturb the ruling class of America. But the behavior of the president and his entourage after the 1972 elections of the year frightened a significant part of the ruling circles no less than the prospect of having presidents with a Kennedy name for a quarter of a century.
Therefore, already at the end of 1972, the largest US newspapers began to publish articles attacking President Nixon under frightening headlines: “So are dictators born!”, “New de Gaulle?”. Nixon was even compared with Caligula and Hitler.
And at the beginning of 1973, they suddenly remembered the incident that had been forgotten, which happened on the night of June 1972, at the Watergate Hotel. Circumstances of penetration into the headquarters of the Democratic Party were examined in the investigative commissions of both chambers of Congress, in print, in television programs. In the course of the noisy campaign that unfolded into the light of God, all the dirty laundry was pulled out of the walls of the White House. It turned out that the Republicans had at their disposal hidden funds from state control that financed explicit and secret propaganda against the Democrats.
Nixon refused to provide the required evidence. And then it turned out that the president was taping all the telephone conversations he conducted. These records were requested by congressmen. At first Nixon refused to do this. Then he provided some of the films. When they began to listen to them, it turned out that there were gaps in them: for some unknown reason, the recordings of votes stopped for tens of minutes.
At the same time, the hype around these revelations made it possible to hide the real crimes of which Nixon and his team were guilty. They did not recall that by order of Nixon 29 on April 1970, the United States expanded the scale of the aggression in Indochina by invading Cambodia. The congressmen were silent about the bombing of North Vietnam by the order of the US government in May 1970, and on the eve of the signing of the truce in December 1972 was carried out an air attack on Hanoi, which killed over 9 thousand people. No one raised the question of the responsibility of the US government in preparing a conspiracy to overthrow the lawfully elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, in September of 1973. They also kept silent about the incessant sabotage and provocations against Cuba.
The latent struggle for “warm places” was also hidden, which allowed their owners to create foreign and domestic policies in their own interests and then enrich themselves. It seemed that dirty tricks against political opponents, relatively small funds for financing them and hiding records of their own telephone conversations were the most terrible crimes that Nixon and his subordinates had committed. The media and congressmen stigmatized Nixon with indignation, and many naive people in the United States and beyond admired the orders of American democracy, which do not allow any misconduct and lies of the country's top leaders to descend. Many of the top US officials from the Nixon administration were tried and imprisoned. Expected that after his resignation Nixon will also be subjected to a harsh trial.
8 September 1972. The new president, Gerald Ford, issued a decree pardoning Nixon "for any crime he could have committed while he was in power."
Ford decree was indignant, but gradually the passions around Watergate subsided. Democratic candidate candidate Jimmy Carter won the next 1976 presidential election, and a new redistribution of "mining" in favor of the winners occurred.
Will the court await Obama?
Now, like 40 years ago, the issue of bringing the President of the country to court is on the agenda of US political life. The attack on the highest power in the United States is deployed whenever the balance in the distribution of "production" is disturbed. This can happen not only as a result of aggressive actions of the winning party, but also in the case of a sharp increase in the size of the "prey".
This was the case, for example, after the end of the US civil war in 1865, when the victory of the capitalist North over the plantation South led not only to the liberation of millions of blacks from slavery, but also to the occupation of southern US states by northerners. Then a lot of speculators from the North rushed to the south, for a pittance, the meantime property of the recently fabulously rich plantation owners. They were called "baggage holders", as they came with an empty bag, and returned to the north by the owners of large estates. Coming from the southern state of Tennessee, Vice-President Andrew Johnson tried to hold back some robbers. But against him an impeachment procedure was organized. Only the voice of Senator Edmund Ross in voting on impeachment prevented Johnson's removal. The threat of removal from power frightened Johnson and he no longer tried to deter predators from the North.
Opportunities for the rapid enrichment of those who occupy "warm places" also arose after the deployment of a new round of the arms race under the pretext of combating "international terrorism" in 2001. The coming of the Bush - Cheney government was preceded by a campaign for the removal from office of President Clinton as a result of the impeachment procedure. As in the case of Nixon, Clinton was accused of concealing the truth, although in this case it was not a criminal offense, but purely intimate matters. How fierce the struggle between George Bush and his rival Al Gore was during the presidential election of 2000 of the year was shown by the fact that their outcome was decided by hand counting of ballots in Florida. The growth of government spending on the arms race under Bush was accompanied by a speculative boom, which culminated in a financial crisis in the United States and then in many leading countries of the world.
Now in the United States, despite the sluggish growth in production and the presence of a fantastically huge foreign debt, there has been a new round of speculative boom.
As before 2008, the growth in the value of shares in the United States is several times higher than the growth of the real economy. And this means that the possibilities for enriching those who have access to cash flows are enormous.
The campaign to discredit the president and his party unfolded several months before the so-called mid-term elections to the US Congress, when a third of the Senate and the entire House of Representatives would be re-elected in November more than two years before the next presidential election.
Unexpectedly, the bookstores of Monica Lewinsky appeared in bookstores, which makes it possible to recall the scandal surrounding President Bill Clinton and thereby strike at the prestige of his wife, who is considered a likely candidate for the presidency of the United States. Although Obama has no right to become a president for a third term, he has also become the object of sharp criticism and is accused of abusing his official position. Any Obama remarks have been ridiculed. Suddenly, after six years of his presidency, they began to say that he was a weakling and a loser.
It is not known whether the case reaches impeachment, but accusing the ruling party of abuse can seriously undermine its prestige and contribute to the victory of Republicans in the congress elections in 2014 and in the presidential elections (and congress) in 2016. Like 40 years ago, the struggle for control over the United States is increasing every month.
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