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Barack Obama Wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Barack Obama has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The BBC opines: "In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honoring his intentions more than his achievements. After all he has been in office only just over eight months and he will presumably hope to serve eight years, so it is very early in his term to get this award. ... The committee does not make any secret of its approach. It states that he is being given the prize 'for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.' This is of course an implied criticism of former US president George W Bush and the neo-conservatives, who were often accused of trying to change the world in their image." The Washington Post collects more reactions from around the world.
It seems a bit premature. but hey, whatever they want to do.
I've decided to Diversify my Holdings. I've divided my cash between my left and right pockets, instead of all in one.
This win was more a rebuke to the conservatives than anything else.
I remember when the Nobel Prize used to mean something, when people won it many years after tremendous accomplishments. It was so exclusive that the best of the best never knew if they would ever receive it. Now it seems you get it for not being like the guy before you.
I think he may possibly deserver the prize, but its too early to say. Shouldn't they have waited to see if he manages to sort out Iraq, bring peace to the Middle East or something like that? After all if he does manage it now there will be nothing to reward him with.
Winning the peace prize by sending 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan while mulling even more? What a load.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
That is one hell of a first 11 days.
(Or one hell of a consolation prize for not scoring the Olympics.)
(Or an ironic thing to give a man who declared war on the moon.)
(Or one hell of a band-aid for being satirized on SNL)
What exactly has he done to deserve the prize? Would it not have been better to wait until he got done with his presidency first?
As someone said on TPM, this sounds more like a 'Congratulations for not picking McCain' award.
"When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set." - Lin Yutang
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
"This is the first time the award is given for wishful thinking," -Danny Danon, Israeli politician.
This is, I think, a general reaction from a lot of people, but it doesn't really line up with the history of the prize. In 1987, for example the prize was awarded to Óscar Arias, a Costa Rican president, for making some strong gestures that he would stop the Nicaraguan war that had been raging for a decade, fueled by the United States. This raised Arias' profile, and gave him the political capital to broker a peace deal in 1988.
In a lot of ways, I think that this is a better use of the prize; not to recognize achievements after the fact, but to encourage and foster new achievements that might not have happened without the award. Whether this will affect Obama's actions, who can say, but he'll certainly feel a little awkward now if he doesn't get anything done soon.
How can they give someone the Nobel Peace Prize for something he has not done yet? The US is still in Iraq and Afghanistan and we are no closer to pulling out than we were 8 months ago. From Wikipedia: "According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded 'to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.'" What has Barak Obama done (not talked about doing) in the last 8 months that makes him worthy of the prize this year?
"Frequently wrong, never in doubt."
However, I would love if President Obama showed the world how good he is by refusing to accept it stating he has so much more work he still needs to do. However isn't Will Smith giving out the award? I don't think I could refuse an award by Will Smith so I can't blame President Obama if he reluctantly accepts. For what it's worth I still think he is worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, even this soon in as long as he can deliver on the good strong start he has made.
I find it interesting that Obama has received the peace prize, but not Ghandi. What a joke.
Download free e-books, lectures, and tutorials at bookgoldmine.com
"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind."
I don't see how he could even be a consideration. I think Obama has peace intentions (although an ongoing war doesn't lend itself to that) but in no way has it impacted the world enough. The only way this could be a worse choice is if they gave one to Al Gore. (Fuck!)
I used to have an enormous respect and admiration for the Nobel Foundation, but like anything with good intentions in this world, it has fallen to disgusting political prostitution.
Barack Obama missed a golden opportunity to posit himself as a great man. He could have refused the prize, citing the obvious fact that he has not achieved anything of substance yet. That would have gained him instant worldwide respect, while exposing the Nobel institution as the farce that it has become. But now, Obama is looking like yet another politician joining yet another little prestige club of politicians.
Don't jump the gun... with insane health reforms he might incite the US to civil war. I know I'm more annoyed at him than at W.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is looking at this and wondering what the hell your country is thinking.
I don't think he deserves the award this early, but being honest, he is presenting a far better image to the rest of the world than has been done in the past decade. Some of his speeches in the middle east reflect a balanced and measured approach without historical alliances clouding the issues.
And civil war over health care? Are you honestly that insane?
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This is not news for nerds. It's news for CNN, Fox, etc. Please stop trying to turn this site into Digg.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Wow, so in your world affordable health care is "insane" but blowing billions of dollars on a war is business as usual? Where do you people come from?
Well, I am never ashamed to be an American, even if I find the behavior of some of us to be an embarrassment, and I think it is too early to call Obama the worst President Mi>ever, but I do agree awarding him the Peace prize is bullshit.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
France, Canada, Japan, all engulfed in civil strife, with the walking dead, condemned by bureaucratic Death Panels, roaming the streets and hordes of atheists burning churches.
Thankfully the insurance industry is ready to pay billions to upstanding Congressmen and selfless community organizers so they can spread the truth.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Of course he can't get everything done and needs to make comprimises but he is the best thing since Kenedy. Period.
Let me guess... You get your information from Fox News?
Your spelling and Kennedy worship suggests to me that you get your information from MSNBC. See how easy it is to dismiss someone when you can just stereotype them rather then engage in an actual dialog with them?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You should be a tad more disgusted that the glorified wasting of money to kill people across the world is considered "less annoying" than having the possibility of a slightly higher bill, or slightly higher taxes, or maybe, just maybe, it being a better choice.
Just remember, you said it. You prefer throwing billions at killing people than throwing billions at giving everyone health care.
This really just happened.
As I read this thread, I said "Obama won the Noble Peace Prize" and he immediately shot back, "Why? He hasn't stopped the war or anything."
I am not taking about an indoctrinated child poised to defend (or attack) certain ideologies. Hell, I don't even think he knows what the Nobel is...but he sure can figure out that Peace Prize and "ongoing war" should not go together. Pretty perceptive.
Wow, so in your world affordable health care is "insane"
What makes you think that any of the bills currenting pending before Congress are going to make health care affordable? All they are going to accomplish is to transfer the burden of paying for overpriced health care to the Government. The reason that health care is so expensive is because large bureaucracies (public and private) separate the consumer from the cost of the product.
Take a look at health care procedures that aren't covered by Uncle Sam and/or private insurance. LASIK surgery, cosmetic surgery, etc all exist in a competitive marketplace and have all come down in price since being introduced. Why is it that I can now have someone operate on my eyes for less cost than my last round of blood work?
Health care "reform" that doesn't address health care inflation is no reform at all. It's just going to socialize the problem, which will in the long term lead to either rationing or bankruptcy.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
... they should have waited the end of his presidency, some more years to assess the results of his actions and then decide what to do. What they did is detrimental to the authoritativeness of the Nobel Peace itself.
I'll have to start a blog outlining all the things I want to do, like solving hunger, cleaning up all the pollution from the ocean, and bringing peace and love to all mankind.
If I get enough subscribers that I become famous, I can get the Nobel Peace Prize too! And I don't even have to leave my desk.
Last time I checked the Constitution gave the Federal government the authority to blow billions of dollars on war and no authority to spend one red cent on health care (And yes I believe Medicare is unconstitutional too). The quantity of resources spent is an irrelevant metric to determine weather the Constitution permits something.
The wiki's translation of Nobel's will (and it looks good, after a cursory glance at the original swedish) reads:
Note the past tense.
President Obama has done nothing at all to reduce standing armies, and his work towards a fraternity between nations is in its infancy.
The Peace Prize committee generally gives awards for either of two reasons:
1) As a backward-looking life-time achievement award for someone who has a long history or some key game-changing accomplishment on their resume. e.g. Mother Theresa, Elie Weisel, Jimmy Carter, Mandela/de Klerk.
2) As a forward-looking attempt to focus global attention on something/someone/somewhere, and to endorse ongoing efforts to (hopefully) accomplish something. e.g. Arafat/Peres/Rabin, Aung San Suu Kyi, Wangari Muta Maathai, Gore et al.
This is an example of the latter. Is it political? Of course it is; the Peace Prize has always been political.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
he isn't trying to make health care more affordable. None of them are. They are about consolidating the power of the Federal Government.
If they were trying to make health care more affordable they would have first...
1. Removed the blocks put in place so you cannot buy or take your private health insurance across state lines.
2. Medical malpractice and tort reform, because the amount of insurance needed to practice some medicines is beyond reasonable
3. Clean up the fraud in Medicare so more of the money is actually available for treatment
4. Expanded HSA so individuals can make their own health care decisions.
The real fault of the US's current health care is that severe medical hardships can strip a family of all their property - something that state medical systems already do (at least you can go bankrupt fighting a private insurer but states still take property)
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Everything has bias. Stop even attempting to claim that anything is objective. People use bias as a way to attack the value of what is being said. The truth is that everything said or written carries a spin intended by the original author. Whether this affects the veracity of what is said is an entirely separate matter.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
The "peace" prize jumped the shark a long time ago. Wilson, Roosevelt, Kissinger, Arafat? Obama should decline the prize as an insult.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
A lot premature. Barack has accomplished very little in terms of peace. They could have just waited 10 years and then give him a prize if he really did anything good. They've been giving many of these prizes years after the actual achievements, so what's the rush?
After all, the USA could still start a war with Iran, and so much for world peace then. You can say they are making nukes for all they want, but there's no real evidence yet[1].
[1] http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/MediaAdvisory/2009/MA200919.html
Which party is telling us what we can and cannot think? Which party is telling us what we can say and listen to?. Which party, rather than actually doing something to actuallly help people out of poverty is instead keeping them from that end state?
You misunderstand the notion of Republicanism in its purest sense (i.e. I'm talking about the conservative core of the Republican Party, not RINO's who's only goal is to grow government slighly more slowly than the other guys). It is intended to create an environment where equal opportunity exists for all; it does not guarantee equal outcomes for all, nor should it. That's been tried, and it has failed dismally where ever it's been tried.
You need it to live, therefore providers can charge pretty much whatever they'd like.
No, providers can charge whatever they'd like because you have no idea what the service actually costs and people have no incentive to argue with them over the price because they aren't paying it to begin with. Do you really think hospitals would get away with charging $40 for dressings (the line item from my recent visit to the ER) if people actually saw that bill and had to pay it?
If you believe the free market has any role in the health care system, you might want to learn something about how it works.
I know plenty about how the health care system works and it isn't anything remotely close to a free market. Go read this article in The Atlantic and educate yourself. I think you'll find it informative.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The conservative party caters to BIG FUCKING BUSINESS
Oh really? Let's see... coal mining? Yep, big business. Banks? Big, big fucking business. Media conglomerates? Yep, big business. Movie companies? Hell yeah. Big music labels? Yep.
What do all of those have in common? Oh yeah, they overwhelmingly vote and donate to the Democrats...
They could care less about the working stiff who earns less than $75,000/year.
Hm. Every time my taxes go up, it's Democrats doing it. I make less than $50,000/year. They raise my taxes, I have less money to support my family. Yet I "make too much" for most government-given benefits. I don't think the Democrats care about me very much at all...
If you have more than 5 million in the bank, and your income is over 1/4 million, yes, I can see why you would prefer the republicans. But, don't tell me that you're a "working man". That bird don't fly. Graduating from an Ivy League college, just to join the Good Old Boy's club doesn't qualify you as a "working man". Never has, never will.
I make under $50,000/year. I didn't go to an Ivy League college, I paid my own way from a Tier 2 college on partial merit-based (National Merit Scholar) assistance. If I had been female or black, I was told by most of the places I applied that (a) if I wasn't accepted, being female/black would have gotten me in and I was rejected so they could meet minority-quota, or (b) I was accepted but all their scholarship money was reserved for female or "minority" students and the basic NMS assistance was all I'd get out of them.
Fuck the "Good Old Boys" club, and equally fuck the "we discriminate on race/sex" crowd. As the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has said, "the best way to stop discriminating based on race is to stop discriminating based on race."
My objection to the Democrats is simple: from the time I have been able to work (and I started working at age 15) every time they get power, my taxes go up. They jacked up the sales tax in my home county, they jacked up the property taxes and nearly put my family out of our house at one point, they jacked up payroll taxes, they jacked up income taxes on both the state and federal level. I'm a "working stiff" and they don't care shit about me, and if you believe the Democrats care about working stiffs, you're either clueless or brainwashed.
The problem with any discussion of Democrat and Republican platforms is that neither party even remotely espouses the supposed platforms they stand for.
You have supposed liberals championing for government control, censorship, and the removal of rights. (Clinton, Biden, Reid)
You have supposed fiscal conservatives handing out bushels of money left and right. (McCain and Bush)
Both parties voted for war. Both parties voted for massive bailouts. Both parties keep putting money in their pocket. Both parties voted for domestic spy programs. Both parties keep creating new federal bureaucracy without doing anything to really make our lives better.
At the end of the day, we need a certain dose of the Libertarians, who want less government and more personal freedom, except they're naive in thinking if we ignore the rest of the world, they'll ignore us.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
"Einstein didn't even have Power Point, but that's essentially what he did too."
So you're arguing that Al Gore actually conceived the theory of global warming then? Did the science? Worked out the equations? Submitted the research to peer review? That Al Gore?
I guess he really did invent the Internet then.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Black female, here. I'd like to temporarily interrupt your rant to respond to this:
I didn't get this Black fund or this Woman fund that pays for college. The financial aid office didn't tell me "good news, you don't have to pay because you're Black and Female". I have about $40,000 in student loans from a bank.
I need you to imagine for a moment that you are a Black woman. You have to work with people. You have to apply for jobs. You sometimes need help from people. And all of these people are white men who have been told time and time again, they would have all the things they deserve and all the things they worked for, except that all of those things were given to people like you instead. This is in spite of the fact, they're making more money than you and they have the job you wish you had.
Better yet, imagine you finally have a chance to get a promotion that will put you over that $50,000 mark. And the person who has to decide whether to give it to you or the next guy has just finished reading some slashdot post about how the other guy deserves it and you don't. I'm just saying.