when do I get my Peace Prize?
I guess anybody can get one as long as they talk the good talk. No need to walk the walk.
]]>If you could point to at least one thing he’s done that could possibly move us toward peace, aside from just talking about what he might/could/kinda wants to do, I might be inclined to agree. Hell, if he’d been given the award in two more years instead, I wouldn’t even be surprised. But as it stands, he’s not even starting to work towards anything but is still in the talking phase.
If all he ever does is talk, will all of you still believe he deserved the award? Are glowing speeches enough, and if so, shouldn’t the award go to the speech writers?
]]>No offense intended, but when even his own staff reacts in disbelief to the prize, you look completely biased in trying to justify it.
He TALKS about closing GITMO but has done very little about it, realizing belatedly that it’s not as easy as he previously thought (for the record, Bush moved more people out of that prison in his last year than Obama’s been able to do). He TALKS about ending torture but plans on utilizing rendition more than Bush ever did.
He TALKS about cooperation, engagement and peace, but where the hell was he when the people of Iran were being slaughtered (they still are)? He’s welcomed Ahmedinejad with open arms. He TALKS, but everything he says comes with an expiration date. Remember the missile shield he chunked? Yeah, that’s back already. He TALKS about reducing nukes but just made an agreement with Iran that will see to it that they can actually build one. And what cooperation? All he’s done is give in to other world leaders. He hasn’t been able to get any to even meet him halfway.
Ending poverty? How’s he planning on doing that? Giving more bailouts to the wealthiest Americans and then cutting their pay and thus losing out on the taxes? America is at its highest unemployment in 26 years. Americans are seeing more poverty, not less.
Darfur? Again, he’s TALKED.
Climate Change? The man won’t even cut the AC in the White House. And Cash for Clunkers was a climate disaster, as it meant destroying perfect good cars and buying new ones. Though they have better gas mileage, it takes years to make up for the CO2 emissions from creating the cars in the first place. Driving that clunker until it dies is by far the green approach.
All the man’s done is TALK, and even then, he’s reversed himself and proven through his actions that he didn’t mean what he’s said. But even if we haven’t had the last nine months to see what a leader he is, how can anyone give a politician a peace award for making promises? Since when do any politicians keep every promise, let alone presidents?
It’s disappointing to see this article here.
]]>In this case in particular, you need the whole picture to see where the Norwegians were going with this. The questions the USA asked were different from the questions everyone else asked.
We asked: “How many more soldiers? How much more will this cost? What’re we doing there, anyway?”
They asked: “What else are they going to aggravate? Isn’t anyone paying attention in the US? How could they vote for four more years of this?”
No arguing Bush’s AIDS initiative! Well done. But it’s on the short list. You simply can’t put Obama’s award in perspective without looking at the longer list. Much as I want that list to go away, we don’t have the luxury to ignore it. We’re IN it, neck deep.
]]>but…what has chernobyl to do with nuclear weapons?
]]>I”m really tired of people comparing Bush to Obama. ESPECIALLY in this case. Stating Bush involved us in a war in Aghanistan has nothing to do with whether Obama deserves the award. I know Bush isn’t popular on BNT, and I’m not terribly fond of him either, but I’m tired of people bashing him…it gets old. Also, people dismiss any of his good efforts. Somebody check out his AIDS initiatives with Africa. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about them…he’s not a saint, but I don’t think he’s the bloodthirsty, war-monger everybody seems to paint him as. Cheney on the other hand…
]]>Technically speaking, Nelson Mandela “didn’t DO anything” except sit in jail for nearly two decades. And Al Gore was focused on global warming – not sure when that had anything to do with peace. As far as I know, Gore hasn’t ended global warming, Carter hasn’t given all the homeless homes, Martin Luther King didn’t end racism. But they led in directions that mattered in terms of building stability.
Americans are more concerned with what Obama does domestically, so I think his peace initiatives are better recognized outside the US than within it. And that does matter from a travel perspective, in terms of understanding ourselves by how others see us. Obama’s done a fair amount toward restoring our international credit, not to mention working to reverse the damage of the past 8 years in the areas listed in the article.
Compare this to his predecessor, who had us heading off to Afghanistan by this time, after nine months of rolling back civil rights in between vacations. By the measure of “doing something”, oh yes – Bush “did something”.
As far as I’m concerned: it’s their prize and they can award it to whomever they want. The controversy seems to have less to do with Obama and more to do with our understanding of the prize itself.
]]>From the wikipedia article on it –terribly authoritative, i know 
The omission of Gandhi has been particularly widely discussed, including in public statements by various members of the Nobel Committee. The Committee has confirmed that Gandhi was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, a few days before he was murdered in January 1948. In 1948, the year of Gandhi’s death, the Nobel Committee declined to award a prize on the ground that “there was no suitable living candidate” that year.
If Ghandi doesn’t get deserve the award, we can make an argument that the rest of the recipients don’t either 
. In the end, the award is just an award. The people who award it are just people. The work and accomplishments of the recipients have been recognized by the award, but the award in of itself does not validate the work done, and neither does is invalidate all the work for peace that is done but is not recognized.