Prometheus 6   

If the Bush matrix reloads, Powell may go
05/18/2003 09:56 PM EDT

By DEBORAH MATHIS

… Powell tried to be the good soldier. He worked his shift in the saber-rattling room. He performed his version of the growl, the scowl and the sneer in public. But it is well known now that, in his truer moments and behind the scenes, Powell despised the take-no-prisoners approach to diplomacy. He broke ranks with Bush�s power-drunk macho men and pleaded for sobriety. Terrorism is an international scourge, he argued; the international community should weigh in.

That did it. If not before, then certainly after his futile attempt to get the United Nations behind the violent, vengeful, supremacist American president, Powell must have become aware that his position of power was an illusion. He isn�t the maestro of American foreign policy, he�s just an errand boy dispatched to create the impression that the Bush administration gives a damn about the rest of the planet.

In other words, Powell is trapped in the Bush Matrix -- a world of mind games and mind control. A virtual reality where perceptions are shaped by creative programming. A fake existence where appearances are orchestrated to distract us from what�s really going on. A world where the first black man to hold one of the most powerful posts on the globe is ignored, sabotaged, marginalized and patronized by people who only wanted him for his curb appeal in the first place.