Comments on: Fukuyama Endorses Obama; Slams McPrickly, Dick & Bush

By: toriielynnxo

toriielynnxo — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 01:18:11 +0000

Hey! check this out: McCain voter fraud!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGF-HEd6XnA

By: Mary

Mary — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:53:02 +0000

63 – ahh, that’s where the gift for understatement ended up. *g*

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:52:35 +0000

Sorry Blub, ’twas afore lunchtime (my time) when I stuck that up there.

I always check out Emptywheel early(?) and then catch ‘em later when they go up to the ‘top’.

By: Blub

Blub — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:26:32 +0000

I was eating dinner when I read that and almost threw up ;-p

By: Blub

Blub — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 00:16:53 +0000

Isn’t Fukuyama’s underlying “End of History” argument focused on the celebration of the final, awesome, victory of the post-War new economic order — the triumph of our particular type of market capitalism and financial/innovation primacy? The exact same structure that is now, as we speak, in the process of imploding around us? There’s being wrong, and then there’s really really really being dead wrong.

By: DWBartoo

DWBartoo — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:47:57 +0000

Aye, the comb-spit was amazing.

Nonetheless, Paul Wolfiwitz is the very picture of swavay and deboner …

By: thewalll

thewalll — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:22:21 +0000

While Fukuyama and others may have been staunch supporters of the war in Iraq, you have to go back to the Nixon era to fully understand why we went to war. With all the other noise in the media in the late 60s and early 70s, few probably focused on what in today’s lingo would be called the “neocons.” Paul Wolfiwitz, Dick Cheny and Donald Rumsfeld, Abrams and others always wanted to invade somewhere in the Mideast or “Arabia” to secure America’s oil future. It wasn’t until “W” was anointed as President that this intimate little group were able to persuade W to create drama and force the resolution of it by invading Iraq.

Amazingly, Senator John Kerry, Ma. is the only public figure I have ever heard that gave Wolfiwitz his true credit for initiating the war. Wondering what type of character Wolfiwitz could be, Michael Moore’s movie about the war answered that question for me. Wolfiwitz was about to speak somewhere outside, probably around Washington DC. Prior to approaching the microphone and unbeknownst to him that he was being filmed, he took out his comb, spit on it and then drug it through his greasy, dandruff laden hair. Being somewhat surprised at this derelict behavior, I wrote a letter to Donald Rumsfeld and asked how much Michael Moore had to pay Wolfiwitz to display such degenerate behavior, I never got a reply.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:18:09 +0000

58 - I wasn’t aware of it - it sounds very interesting, but in an overwhelming and depressing way. I’m actually very under- to un- educated on most things religious, political, ideological, psychological, etc. so I like filling in some of the many gaps with references that get mentioned here and elsewhere. Thank you.

59 But we have not taken them over or asserted the authority of a competent owner or savvy creditor. Amen. And we are then using more and more billions and carrots and carrots and carrots to actually try to tempt them into doing a leeetle teeeeny bit of what Paulson told us they WOULD be doing with the money.

Once NYState got involved on the AIG end, suddenly there was discussion about trying to get **fraudulent conveyances** back (**i.e., under most state law approaches, distributions to insiders or family of assets by an entity or person whose debts exceed assets, so as to prevent by fact or intent access of creditors to those assets)

One thing I think Paulson et al are doing is trying to delay and dilly dally to run out the typical 1 year preferential or fraudulent conveyance statutes so that all those bonuses and excessive distributions don’t get delved into. But that would still just be a minor piece of the problem - the bigger problem being that we are getting nothing, not even required actions, for our $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ No other country was willing to do that.

By: earlofhuntingdon

earlofhuntingdon — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:52:33 +0000

Good article, great artwork. Just one thing about Fukuyama’s description of the financial crisis. We.Have.Not.Nationalized.Any.Banks. We have given them billions and billions, as the late Carl Sagan might have quipped. But we have not taken them over or asserted the authority of a competent owner or savvy creditor. Only those Old Brits and Europeans and Japanese sink to that level. We prefer “market-based solutions to market-based problems”, don’t we, Milton?

We have not, for instance, fired senior executives or cut their compensation, much less asked for a lot of it back. We have not stopped those execs from rewarding themselves with more champagne, manicures, money, spas, and luxury golf and beach outings. We have failed to institute new accounting, audit, lending, and reporting requirements.

Hank Paulson hasn’t even asked his beneficiaries what they’ve done with all our money! He doesn’t want to know, and spends even more of it by outsourcing the very act of giving them our money. Mr. Paulson already knows we won’t get it back, and that his “borrowers” will shortly ask for a lot more. Come next February, I expect to read about his new job, as chief lobbyist for a new trade association: Wall Street Bailouts ‘R US.

By: stryder

stryder — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:43:47 +0000

You have almost exactly captured the results of that study of how Hitler could pull off his scheme,which basically concluded that people don’t want to be responsible for their actions.They want someone to tell them what is right and wrong and be resposible for THEIR action.
When I was in Vietnam it wasn’t me killing people(I was not responsible) it was the US, for all their idealogical reasons.Then one day you grow a conscience and spend the rest of your life trying to forgive yourself
The study was called “the tenth level”.You may be aware of it.