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WikiLeaks, Internet Nominees For Nobel Peace Prize
Hugh Pickens writes writes "WikiLeaks and the Internet are among a record 241 nominations for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize that also includes Afghan rights advocate Sima Samar, the European Union, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya Sardinas, Russian rights group Memorial and its founder Svetlana Gannushkina. 'Looking at the long term, we can say interest in the prize is strong and growing along with the number of candidates,' says Geir Lundestad, a non-voting member of the Nobel panel. WikiLeaks grabbed the world's attention and angered a number of governments by publishing thousands of secret US diplomatic cables, while pundits say the Internet or social media such as Facebook and Twitter, which have been used to help organize dissent in countries with oppressive governments, could be rewarded. Under the leadership of former Prime Minister Thorbjoern Jagland, the Nobel panel has not shied away from bold decisions — first picking Barack Obama just months after he became US president, and last year awarding the prize to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo."
I'd love to meet this Internet guy some day.
Kriston
will leave the United States government in an interesting quandry if it proceeds to success.
The US was vociferous in supporting the award of the Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, in the face of the Chinese government's strident opposition. What will it do when an organization it considers "treasonous" is a Nobel candidate?
Just for payback... I mean, symmetry... China should publicly back Wikileaks' bid.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The prize now has become so political that it's hard to take it seriously anymore. There is no way Wikileaks stands a chance because of the way the committee is beholden to Western governments. Only pro-Western dissidents ever win, NEVER anti-Western dissidents or even those who might be construed as opposed to Western governments (ala Wikileaks). Obama's prize was the height of this political hypocrisy--giving him the award before he even had the chance to do anything, just on his word that he was going to do peaceful stuff (which he hasn't, if anything he's expanded Bush's heavy-handed war policies even more).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I guess we can nominate Anonymous as well. At least *someone* can go in a Guy Fawkes mask to collect the prize :)
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
Who can accept an award on behalf of the Internet?
Al Gore, of course!
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
I'm pretty sure that whoever ends up causing the destruction of all the world's armaments overnight will Not be invited to the smoldering ruins of Norway to accept a peace prize...
Either toughest ass award, because one needs to have the toughest ass on the planet in order to brave going against all the established dirty dealers of the world, or, a heart as big as a mountain.
Regardless of how you look at it, they perfectly embody the definition of 'berserker'.
Read radical news here
People have the unfortunate tendency to commit terribly boring speeches when they win things. Anonymous, on the other hand, could keep it pithy.
"Thank you, thank you. We did it for the lulz." *Applause*
Wow, WikiLeaks got nominated! This has to be an important story. After all, it isn't like the nomination process is fairly simple or that there are 240 other nominees.
I don't really like how the nomination is for the Internet as an entity, though I agree there needs to be a Peace Prize for it. The best candidate is probably Sir Tim Berners-Lee. To most people, the Web IS the Internet - let's face it, when people think of the Internet and its contributions to society, they probably do not think about BBS of olde or of Gopher servers. Berners-Lee also has the advantage of actually being personally responsible for something. Many important creations end up being the work of a larger group where it's hard to single anyone out. So given what the Internet means to people, Berners-Lee is probably the best single person to represent it.
What about Rachid Ammar, the Tunisian General who :
- denied a direct order to shoot on civilians,
- put Ben Ali on a place with a kick in his ass,
- protected the people from armed militia ?
I don't believe in conspiracy theories but this smells like yet another way to get Julian into Norway where he will be kidnapped and brought to Sweden where the US forces will bring him to the world series court of justice.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
Its not a misunderstanding. The Chinese know full well the prize committee is not an agent of the government, they just choose to spin it that way for their population.
What they really think about it is that it is an outgrowth of Western culture and political theory. The Chinese government believes that it has the best interests of its people at heart, and that a state like theirs is best for China. They know the the West does not share that opinion, so the Chinese government will use whatever means it has to discredit the prize committee when it conflicts with them. The best way of doing that is to spin it as a political tool.
As for the problems with trade, they are not punishing Norway for awarding the prize, they are punishing Norway for failing to spy on the committee, and then to for failing to intervene, exert influence and prevent such a candidate from being awarded the prize simply because China is bigger and more powerful. They are trying to bully the Norwegian government into acting in a manner contrary to its people's expectations and more in line with China's. China expects that other governments will do special things to stay friendly with China, and if they don't, they will make sure that the transgressor will pay for their lack of vision.
In short, China won't care if Wikileaks wins, they only care that they were thwarted before and they do not like to be thwarted. The only thing that will mollify China is if their hand-picked candidate wins due specifically to Chinese power. This isn't a matter of balance, its a pure dick waving contest.
Known terrorists have literally been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Yassir Arafat.
Arafat jointly won the Nobel Prize along with Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for their part in the Oslo Peace Accords. Arafat was not a terrorist at the time of winning. He had just negotiated and signed the Peace Accords - which formally renounced violence and recognised the state of Israel. He led a secular organisation, and fought against Hamas and Islamist influence in Palestine. He was seen as a traitor by some of his people for conceding too much in the negotiations, was sidelined by Israel and the West, which ultimately enabled Hamas to seize power.
Arafat's fate wasn't as bad as that of Rabin, who was also viewed as a traitor to his people for signing the Peace Accords, was condemned to death by some Jewish religious scholars for the crime of "treason", and then assassinated by someone who believed in that verdict.
It's too bad that both were seen as traitors for pursuing peace; the failure of the Peace Accords was probably the biggest squandered opportunity for regional peace in the last few decades.
Moreover, they should not ask engineers to accept the award on behalf of the internet, i.e. no Tim Berners-Lee, no Zuckerberg, etc.
Ideally, the people who accept the prize should be people who're most putting themselves at risk to make the internet friendly to dissidents. And that'd be Julian Assange, Jacob Appelbaum (Tor project), etc. :)
We should all hope that WikiLeaks wins with Assange accepting the prize because it's be fucking hilarious if they award an empty chair with him being in prison in Sweden. Truely. Epic. Lulz.
Ideally, they'll award both WikiLeaks and it's leakers, that way we'll get an empty chair for Manning even if Assange has gone free. lol
Alternatively, you might ask some people heavily involved in the actually usage of the internet in the middle easter revolutions, maybe Wael Ghonim.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
If Anonymous wins, Jacob Appelbaum (Tor project) could accept for brining Anonymity to dissidents.
And we'd all lol when TSA takes his laptop again upon reentering the U.S.
And maybe this way the /b/ tards running #anonops would actually figure out they should use Tor. :)
Imho, they should give the prize jointly to WikiLeaks and their anonymous source(s) , with Julian Assange accepting for WikiLeaks and an empty chair for Brian Manning. In fact, maybe two empty chairs, one for Assange and one for Manning, thus egging both Sweden and the U.S. lol
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
peace is a political concept. it is not possible to talk about peace without talking about politics. the very definition of the concept of peace itself is only possible to be made in political terminology
any political situation has people on one side or another. therefore, every peace prize every offered, or any theoretical peace prize even possible, will have political controversy attached to it. even if you awarded the prize to some monk who just helped farmers grow their crops better: some company who is angry that the farmers are better fed and have more time to protest them, they will make a political stink about that prize
so the idea that the peace prize is too political, to me, this just means you don't understand what the peace prize is, or perhaps you don't entirely understand the concept of peace itself
the case could be made, in fact, that the more controversial the peace prize, the more valid a prize it is, because it is more topical and current. pissing a lot of people off is proof that the particular political issue the peace prize is involved with is still a very passionate issue. awarding a peace prize on only very dry dead subjects no one cares about anymore is not interesting or useful
therefore, the more political, the more passionate, and the more controversial the peace prize is, the better. some people need to be pissed off in this world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> The Chinese know full well the prize committee is
> not an agent of the government
Uh... The peace prize committee is appointed by the Norwegian Parliament. There is now a restriction that sitting members of the Parliament can't be on the committee, but it's just made up of past members of the Parliament.
Looking at the makeup of the committee as of today ( http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/nomination_committee/members/ ) I see:
1) Chair was a member of the Parliament 1993-2009, president of the Parliament 2005-2009, Prime minister 1996-1997. On the committee since 2009.
2) Deputy chair was a member of the Parliament 1981-1997, on the committee since 2003.
3) Third member was a member of the Parliament 1977-1993, member of the committee since 1994.
4) Fourth member was a member of the Parliament 1989-1993, on the comittee since 2000.
5) Fifth member was a member of the Parliament 1997-2009, a member of the committee since 2009.
So as of 2010, two of the 5 committee members had been in the Parliament just the year before, and one more had been on the committee ever since she stopped being a member of the Parliament.
Given this setup, and the fact that the committee members have limited terms have to be reappointed by the Parliament, it'd have a pretty hard time not being an agent of the government. Now obviously the Parliament has no _official_ way to influence the decision... but all these people's friends very much "the government" and their standing in the social circles they frequent will depend on their committee's decision.
If they wanted a _really_ independent committee, the selection process for it and the composition of the committee would be radically different. But they want plausible deniability, not real independence.
Now what you say about China certainly seems true to me, and would be true even if the committee _were_ an official agent of the Norwegian government, instead of the unofficial one it actually is.
If you are giving it to Wikileaks, it's only fair Bradley Manning gets the Nobel. He was the one who made it all available to him, and he is suffering in obscurity while Assange contemplates book deals and becomes an international darling of the media and people in the know. He also is the one who actually broke the law, and that needs to be acknowledged as well as transparency. Plus, it would force a spotlight on his treatment.