Alexandre Kojève
If Man becomes an animal again, his arts, his loves, his plays must also become purely natural again. Hence it would have to be admitted that after the end of history, men would construct their edifices and works of art as birds build their nests and spiders spin their webs, would perform musical concerts after the fashion of frogs and cicadas, would play like young animals and would indulge in love like adult beasts.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star. Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.
In 2004, George W Bush’s denunciations of John Kerry as a liberal Washington insider who had trouble articulating clear positions also had the ring of truth.
Those campaigns were slick and sophisticated attempts to shape public opinion. By contrast, McCain’s ads and rhetoric sound like they’re generated by a bunch of twentysomething Republican bloggers, strung out on caffeine at 3am, each trying to out-snark all the others. The main thing the campaign has going for it is sheer outrageousness – that is, by hitting every conceivable cultural hot button and repeating untruths over and over, it will both get an anti-Obama message out and also dominate the news cycle.
It’s just surreal over here at the moment.
The Wall St plunge has finally interrupted the media’s by-the-second coverage of the presidential campaigns. So every cloud has a silver lining.
No, seriously. I think some people are happy that the Dow plunged 500 points because it gave us a break from all the gorram campaign coverage.
McCain’s slight poll lead is heading back to line-ball. It’s like they got out in front, stood around blinking and thought “oh, wow, what do we do now?”
Wouldn’t it be nice if they just ran a few TV debates, did a couple interviews, and then shut the hell up?
And Fukuyama is voting for Obama!
I hope Fukuyama isn’t advising B O. Tho’ maybe some other conservatives are going by the Republican friendly campaign Bumma’s running.
And here I am, just catching up tro Palin.
You guys are unbelievable, with the repeated mantra of ‘Obama good McCain bad’.
I think a first step would be not to read John McQuaid who as I understand claims to have won a Pulitzer Prize. (Not as far as I’m aware but feel free to correct me.) This is a guy who’d tell you that Dubya caused the recent hurricanes. The guy is a fool and anyone who would reference him is equally so. Get a grip and read more than just lefty journalism, you might find you have independent thought.
“You guys are unbelievable, with the repeated mantra of ‘Obama good McCain bad’.”
Don’t believe us then. It’s a (relatively) free country. Just try not to misrepresnt us. Or even try to engage with the arguments instead of resorting to the usual tired cliches.
More like the standard DLC/DNC campaign – don’t be “nasty”, move to the right, blah.
Personally I find Fukyomama’s ‘ Wilsonianism’ about as different and refreshing from his former Neocon philosophies as Pepsi is from Coke.
Just try not to misrepresnt us. Or even try to engage with the arguments instead of resorting to the usual tired cliches.
What adrian said.
Yeah and you know what? It works. Fucked up innit?
Cheers! Raise a glass: Saint Fred,
Who looked on th’ Age of Optimism, and said:
This progress and democracy’s a shroud
‘Cause the shiniest silver lining’s
Got the darkest cloud.
.
If only we’d listened, if only we’d understood. But no. Have to learn the hard way don’t we? Stupid fucking monkeys.
Penance perhaps?
At least the 20-something Republican campaign planners haven’t *yet* descended to calling their centre-leftish opponents evil reptilian kitten-eaters from another planet.