BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
Retired U.S. general Colin Powell is on the campaign trail for the U.S. presidency. "My plan right now is to keep my options open," he told Time magazine in the September 18 issue as he embarks on a 26-city promotional tour for his autobiography, My American Journey. Powell received a cool $6 million advance for the book published by Random House and with excerpts in Time.
Reflecting the shakeup in capitalist politics and appealing to the discontent among millions of working people and those in the middle class for the policies of the Democratic and Republican parties, Powell says, "The time may be at hand for a third major party to emerge." He says neither Democratic nor Republican party "fits me comfortably in its present state."
Calling himself "a fiscal conservative with a social conscience," Powell presents no alternative to the other capitalist politicians running for president. But with so many capitalist politicians discredited because of their attacks on working people, corruption scandals, and other troubles, Powell attracts attention by presenting himself as a figure above politics, someone who is clean and can solve problems like he did in the military.
The reasons for Powell's current appeal "are no mystery," writes Jurek Martin of the Financial Times.
"Americans are as fed up with the two main political parties and their leaders as they were in 1992, when Ross Perot walked away with 20 percent of the vote as an independent," Martin says.
The military commander's moves are especially unnerving to those in the Republican Party who are attempting to mount a campaign against President Bill Clinton.
"Powell's decision will have a big impact," said Congressional house speaker Newt Gingrich."If he were to decide to run in November, that would make it less likely I would run." Powell would "immediately become the chief rival to Senator Dole," according to Gingrich.
Powell makes no claims to oppose the bipartisan assault on entitlements won by working people during past decades of struggle.
Noting that there is not much difference in how his kindred spirits in Congress and the White House plan to slash Medicare benefits, he complained, "why don't they just figure out" how to carry out the cuts and "lead us there?" Some in big-business circles obviously think his untainted image might help get the job done against entitlements.
In making his entry into the 1996 presidential campaign, Colin Powell has carefully tailored his public positions on disputed issues to avoid controversy for now, attempting instead to focus attention on his image as a figure that stands above political wrangling in Washington..
In an interview with ABC-TV's Barbara Walters, Powell said he supports a woman's right to choose abortion. "That's her choice," he said.
Powell says he favors affirmative action but opposes quotas. "What we shouldn't do is say we're going to have six Blacks, or because you're Black, you're coming in." The retired general piously stated, "I benefited from affirmative action in the Army," but not as a "quota promotion." At the same time, Powell is a supporter of the death penalty.
Imperialist war maker
Powell was national security advisor to former president
Ronald Reagan and chairman of the joint chiefs of staff
during the Bush administration. He led Washington's war
against Iraq, helping organize the slaughter of an estimated
150,000 human beings. When asked about the number of Iraqis
killed in the massacre, Powell replied with imperial
arrogance, "It's not a number I'm terribly interested in."
Powell admits drawing up plans to use nuclear weapons against the Iraqi people at the behest of former secretary of defense Dick Cheney. He says that he recommended to stop the war against Iraq because the bloodbath was looking too much on television like "we were engaged in slaughter for slaughter's sake."
Not all bourgeois commentators are so convinced of Powell's abilities to help maintain capitalist rule and are wary of his posturing with third party rhetoric. In an article entitled "Third Party Madness," New York Times columnist William Safire says, being known as "the man who covered up the My Lai massacre," in Vietnam to "the man who...didn't want to seem cruel on TV" during the Iraq war may be a tough to handle for "Candidate Feelgood." Saffire adds, "I'm not sure Powell has the stomach for the hard shots."
Fearing the "chaos in our electoral system" a third party could create, syndicated columnist Donald Lambro admonishes New Jersey senator Bill Bradley and Powell and directs them to "enter the primaries and show there is support for their ideas, rather than tilting at windmills at third party adventures." Powell is still testing the waters. When asked how he would run, Powell replied, "If I were to decide to enter politics and run for the presidency, the easier way to do it, I think, would be as a Republican." At the same time he suggests he may run as an "independent."