Zuzu's Petals

"Fascism is capitalism in decay." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin


If George W. Bush had been born poor it's very safe to say he never would have been a C-student cheerleader at Yale or ever gone AWOL from a "champagne unit" of the Texas Air National Guard.

He would never have run three failed oil companies backed by Saudi Arabian friends of his father.

He would never have been allowed closer to the Texas Ranger locker rooms than a seat down the first-base line would allow.

He most certainly would never have run for public office, much less be awarded the job of President by his father's friends on the Supreme Court.

Never.

But some things would have certainly been the same. He would have still be the same booze-guzzling, cocaine-snorting party boy he ever was.

And I'm just guessing here but based on what we now know he most likely would have served a tour or two in Viet Nam as he'd have been too dumb to avoid the draft. If he survived that gauntlet my guess is that he'd now be a homeless drug-addict, because that's what happens in America when you like drugs more than education and no one is there to help you.

A little harsh? Not as harsh as if George Bush been born poor AND black. Then he would have had the additional burden of fighting the prejudices and intolerance heaped upon him by the likes of those serving in our government today.

People like... George Bush. (If you think otherwise, just deduct the number of blacks on Bush's staff from the number he allowed to drown in New Orleans. Which is the bigger number?)  

John McCain's story is not so much unlike George Bush's except minus the drug-and-alcohol abuse (as far as I know), as he graduated 894 out of 899 in his class at the U.S. Naval Academy. This is an unexceptional man who, if not for his family's prominence (his dad was an admiral) or his very wealthy beer-heiress wife, would also have had no chance at our nation's highest office.

Some people will find comfort in voting for a man who has faithfully followed the path that others have carefully laid out for him, but I'm going with the guy that's blazing the trails he's forged all by himself.

=mike=