{"id":2566,"date":"2008-10-30T21:34:13","date_gmt":"2008-10-31T02:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2566"},"modified":"2008-10-30T21:38:03","modified_gmt":"2008-10-31T02:38:03","slug":"the-golden-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/10\/30\/the-golden-rule\/","title":{"rendered":"the ‘golden rule’…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Francis Fukuyama<\/strong><\/a><\/div>\n

I’m voting for Barack Obama this November for a very simple reason. It is hard to imagine a more disastrous presidency than that of George W. Bush. It was bad enough that he launched an unnecessary war and undermined the standing of the United States throughout the world in his first term. But in the waning days of his administration, he is presiding over a collapse of the American financial system and broader economy that will have consequences for years to come. As a general rule, democracies don’t work well if voters do not hold political parties accountable for failure. While John McCain is trying desperately to pretend that he never had anything to do with the Republican Party, I think it would a travesty to reward the Republicans for failure on such a grand scale.<\/sup><\/p>\n

McCain’s appeal was always that he could think for himself, but as the campaign has progressed, he has seemed simply erratic and hotheaded. His choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate was highly irresponsible; we have suffered under the current president who entered office without much knowledge of the world and was easily captured by the wrong advisers. McCain’s lurching from Reaganite free- marketer to populist tribune makes one wonder whether he has any underlying principles at all.<\/sup><\/p>\n

America has been living in a dream world for the past few years, losing its basic values of thrift and prudence and living far beyond its means, even as it has lectured the rest of the world to follow its model. At a time when the U.S. government has just nationalized a good part of the banking sector, we need to rethink a lot of the Reaganite verities of the past generation regarding taxes and regulation. Important as they were back in the 1980s and ’90s, they just won’t cut it for the period we are now entering. Obama is much better positioned to reinvent the American model and will certainly present a very different and more positive face of America to the rest of the world.<\/sup><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Fukuyama Endorses Obama:
Slams McPrickly, Dick & Bush<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n

Even the neocon nuts are fleeing John McCain and his campaign of shame. The latest surfer from the right to catch the Obama wave to the White House is Francis Fukuyama. That’s right, the guy who literally wrote The End Of History<\/em><\/a><\/strong> has figured out that Barack Obama is history in the making and John McCain is simply ancient and erratic history. And Fukuyama nukes McCain, Bush and Cheney in the process. It is a brutally scathing takedown…<\/sup><\/p>\n

Yep, Francis is right; America was trashed and burned by a bunch of pricks with more balls than common sense, ethics and good governance. You could almost salute Fukuyama for a clear and true stand like this.<\/sup><\/p>\n

Almost:<\/sup><\/div>\n
Almost, that is, if it were not for the fact that Fukuyama himself was one of those "advisors" with Cheney, PNAC and the neocons that helped Bush drive America over the cliff. You are a day late and several trillion dollars short Francis, where was all this good judgment when it counted?<\/strong><\/font><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
To his credit, Fukuyama got off of the bus early [see The Neoconservative Moment<\/strong><\/font><\/a>, Summer 2004]. But it doesn’t take a Professorship at Johns Hopkins to see that the Bush\/Cheney Administration has been a singular disaster, or that the whole Neoconservative version of American Hegemony was fatally flawed from the start. <\/div>\n

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he⋅gem⋅o⋅ny<\/strong> h\u00c9\u00aa\u00cb\u02c6d\u00ca\u2019\u00c9\u203am [hi-jem-uh-nee, hej-uh-moh-nee]<\/div>\n
–noun,<\/div>\n
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  1. \n
    leadership or predominant influence exercised by one nation over others, as in a confederation.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  2. \n
    leadership; predominance.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n
  3. \n
    (esp. among smaller nations) aggression or expansionism by large nations in an effort to achieve world domination.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

    Nor did Fukuyama particularly distinguish himsef with his perverse reading of Hegel in his book The End of History and the Last Man<\/strong><\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

    But Fukuyama is not why I’m posting his articles or bmaz’s<\/strong><\/font> [emptywheel<\/strong><\/font>‘s blogger cohort] response. I have another point. First, I hold these truths to be self-evident:<\/div>\n