And the Nobel Peace Prize goes to...Barack Obama! - Page 3

Sort of a shame that he is basically being forced to give away the money, all because of the currently insane political climate in this country. Where are the free-marketers arguing that this will only serve to deincentivize future Presidents to work towards peace, if they are unable to gain financially?

Zhukov,

Not all Chewers missing the point of why he was awarded the Prize. As you may have missed, I wrote at length about Obama and his progress on the nuclear arms issue, and how it was of great importance. I agree with you though, it makes perfect sense he was rewarded with the peace prize as a result.

Called it!

Oh yeah! Go me!

Over at Salon, Glenn Greenwald has a pretty interesting and insightful (as usual) take on this whole situation.

Ugh, I woke up late to the shitstorm. Maybe it's not about disarmament, and was in fact granted just because they like the cut of his jibe. What the fuck.

Being nominated in February doesn't really seem to be that big an issue; obviously they were going to vote on everything that had occurred up to the vote, I imagine. It does seem silly though.

You have officially gone off the fucking deep end.

Hilarious! You took a three sentences from the beginning of a multiparagraph post and used it out of context to insult me! Next time please try to keep reading and get into the substance of what I had to say, and my reasons for why I say it.

Why?

Even by February there were plenty of reasons for the prize. His commitment to the nukes issues existed back then, and he has only made more progress since then.

Ya but he's still ordering air-strikes in Afghanistan that have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, allowing people to be detained indefinitely and with no rights whatsoever at black prison sites, etc.

If he truly considers the reasons why they gave him the Prize (because of the hope for a better tomorrow), he needs to pull the troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and shut down Guantanamo and other similar sites real soon, if not immediately.

So many posts to respond to, so little time....

So forgive me if I don't quote each post and these thoughts are scattershot:

<I grew up a staunch Conservative and Republican. One of the (many) things that caused me to change (to the point were I registered as a Democrat to vote for Obama in the primary, donated a lot of money, and voted for him in the general, something I've never done for any other politician) is that the mainstream Right in this country has migrated to crazyland, a territory that used to be dominated by the Left. Go back to the 60's and 70's and you will seem Left learning Xtreme crazy shit, just like you see on the Right now. And just like with the Left in the 70's-80;s, you will see the Right marginalized.

<There are very reasonable, empathic people who happen to believe that a human life, and all the basic rights that accrue to Human life, begins at conception. There are other reasonable people who honestly believe there are alternatives to a Federally run or controlled Healthcare system. Stating that such people are "not fit to breath the good air, or are inhuman" is just being an asshole, no different than a Rush.Hannity/Beckerhead

<Because the Right has entered Crazyland, the reasonable Conservatives are drowned out in the public debates about these important issues. I think this is bad for the country.

<Awarding the Nobel to Obama does risk making the Nobel Committee look like fools, not Obama

<Obama is now walking ever more expectations than he did during the elections. As I stated above, I think the prize was awarded to him to force or at least direct him towards certain courses of action.

Just to add one more point: There ARE topics of current conversation that should in fact exclude one from polite (or any) conversation, such as:

<Obama's place of birth

<Obama's "true" religious affiliation

<911 being caused by George W Bush flying the planes by remote control, yusing CGI fake planes and real bombs etc etc

<Calling the President of the US a Liar while he's addressing the nationa nd Congress

<In any way implying or arguing for killing the President or overthrowing the country.

Obama kept Sarah Palin out of the White House. Peace Prize earned!

Interview with a member of the Nobel Committee

Not much new here but still interesting...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooqkv...eature=popular

Nobel Peace Prize?

Actually I rather thought Obama would be in the running for the other, lesser-known Nobel Prizes.

The Nobel Over 30% Popularity Drop In 6 Months Prize?
The Nobel Really Dicked Up Healthcare Plan Prize?
The Nobel No Action On Gay Rights Prize?
The Nobel Making Us Pay For An American Car Twice By Bailing Out Badly Run Automakers Prize?

But the Peace Prize? Wow... did NOT see that one coming.

LOL,

I am about to go to bed and do not have the time to address every point you've made, but... I notice you posted well after 10 pm. Did you see The President's speech tonight on Gay Rights? He said "I will end "Do not ask- Do not tell" , and he said he will direct the congress to repeal the defense of marriage act. It was an altogether awesome speech, check it out.


So cool he won the Prize. Still excited about this. Does anyone know when he goes to Sweden to accept?

I forget whose signature it was, but I see the text of that speech, Kate, and I think "A lot of people say a lot of stuff." The President has said this before. Time for him to, you know, do something.

I appreciate the fact that people harp on the President to follow through on his promises, and I think it's ultimately a good thing. But I also think you're a bunch of whiny, impatient bitchers who don't really appreciate how any of this works.

START II and meaningful nuclear disarmament is a check.

Gays in the military looks to be a check.

From what I've heard very recently, healthcare is actually looking like a stealth check.

I guess we shoulda just let GM fail and take a couple million jobs with it though, eh? Good plan, there.

The 30% drop in approval, I think, is just good ol' fashioned American Ignorance re-asserting it's providential place as the mass motivator of popular opinion. Also, it's no where near 30%. He's around 50% at the moment, having gained 6% in the last few weeks. He never approached 80% approval.

But it's fun to be snarky and jaded, I guess.

I'm not impatient, and I appreciate that the President made a firm commitment on ending don't ask, don't tell. I'm also aware that, unlike desegregating the military, ending DADT requires the support of Congress to amend the Uniform Code, etc. But I'm also a rabid supporter of GLBTQ issues in this country, and his support was one of the reasons I voted for the President. I liked the speech last night, I felt it was a clear restatement of the issues that he brought up during the campaign, and an assurance that he's not forgotten about these issues.

But I still remain cautious. I'm glad the President cares about these issues, and I understand there's a lot on his plate right now, and it's going to take time. My comment was more along the lines of "well, until I see real movement on the issues, I'm going to not get too excited so I won't get too disappointed."

Yes... it's quite fun. It's nice to have a president who is more worried about popular opinion abroad, than minding the store here at home.

Oh well... the system is far from perfect, and so are our elected officials.

Would never have happened.

Besides, you can tell by the way Obama did it his main purpose was to placate the UAW. Gotta preserve those union votes.

Yeah, they've gotten better at doing what they do best: extortion.


Now they're publicly doing it to the President.

Nope, not to the president. They are doing the extortion to the american people. The president is just the easiest lever right now.

I think you are really REALLY overestimating the power of the president in such situations, and that comes from someone not even an american. And I seriously doubt this is about votes anyway. This is probably about political pull that these companies have in several areas which the president cannot afford to have used against him as he is still figuring out how the web of power is looking.

Or, as "The Wire" put it nicely, its another bowl of shit he has to eat while he is still trying to consolidate a real powerbase. Votes get you in office, but they dont help you pass legislation. The system doesnt work as intended.

I also think that nobel prize is, in a way, an attempt by the entire western world to promise to ourselves that the last years were a bad time, and with the new US president, we ll all get our shit together and be the good guys again. Lets face it, during the Bush years, not just the USA turned out to be a torturing, invading, warmongering juggernaut, led by ego, greed and lust for power. A whole bunch of the holier-than-thou european countries and politicians were faced with the reality of, if they were to adhere to the often-hailed treaties and moral higher ground, having to oppose the USA.
We didnt. Everyone sat idly by, basically pissing all over the geneva conventions and other stuff, in order to avoid a fight nobody really wants. And quite a lot of us arent overly proud of that. Its obvious now, certain powers on this world can do whatever they fucking please, because the only ones able to stop them from doing it arent willing to heed their obligations, and never had much intentions to, either.

But it gnaws, and personally I am still disappointed that everyone looked the other way. I think in that spirit, the nobel prize to Obama is as much as promise to ourselves, as it is a prize to Obama as a person.

On a sidenote, as long as you guys consider the "Fox News demographic" people worth listening to, or people who have their right to speak, vote, and fearmonger, you ll never get much done.
Bringing up these morons isnt helping any discussion, and frankly, they dont want to discuss anyway. No matter how things go, they ll spin it into Anti-Obama bullshit, so I dont think their views hold any worth.
Hell, if it was for me, people of near-religious conviction in their party line, no matter which country or party, wouldnt even get to vote. Democracy isnt intended to be a game of "who rallies more zealots". Thats what fucking crusades are for!

Great post, as usual, Khaunshar. The above actually has been really bothering me lately. I don't watch Fox or listen to any of the screaming heads from the right. The righties in government have not had much of substance to say since well before Obama was elected. So I really don't understand how the mainstream media--and lefty commentators alike--spend so much time covering it. It's completely disproportionate the number of right wing "pundits" end up on TV and in the paper for comment. I remember reading a study where it was like 2:1 over lefties or moderates. I've been telling myself it's the corporate interest, and I think in terms of mainstream media, it is, but I also think that just as the right has Obama Derangement Syndrome, I think the left has Right Wing Hate Machine Derangement Syndrome.

Lets start from the beginning...Princess Kate, sorry I will now refer to you as P.K. due to how often I have to deal with your uneducated responses. Yeah, life is a bitch...

So, Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize...In what parallel universe did he deserve, let alone win anything?

He did not EARN the Nobel Peace prize! He took the cowardly way out of war by hiring private contractors to knock off Iraqis and sent the professionals to Afghanistan. A very clever trick, or slight of hand, but that is the plan. I find it amazing that someone with such a lack of foreign policy experience would even be considered for any prize.

I have read your posts and noticed you have many issues with the 3 branches of government, thus your comments are Utopian by their very nature, and have astonishingly little to do with the tenets, checks, and balances actually laid out in the United States Constitution.

Let's take his promise of eliminating "don't ask, don't tell"... which is actually a very astute political move on his part. He won't "deal with it" at this time, but by the mere mention of it, he has successfully diverted attention away from other pressing matters, such as his complete lack of foreign policy experience.

As an HRC member myself for well over a decade, I assure you... gays serving in the military is not at the top of the agenda. I feel disenfranchised as a voter and HRC supporter that I believed the President would take on "issues" that Bubba took on over 10 years ago. Agenda the same... shut the gays up by offering the same recycled promises.

I've brought up quite a few political points, and I have seen the way you tend to respond to posts. Is it possible for you not to cut and paste someone's post line by line, issue by issue... by forming your own thesis,(IE: original thought). Try actual intellectual debate instead of cut and paste. I look forward to your stereotypical lackluster response. Good luck... when it comes to original thought, it's obvious you will need it.

Yes Bill Clinton did tackle the issue of Gays in the military, and got really damaged politically for it. In fact, the whole controversy surrounding "Don't ask don't tell" resulted in serious setbacks for Clinton and limited his ability to enact his agenda.

Now Obama is in office 8-9 months and is not moving as quickly as many would like. I get it, and I think people are right to be suspicious of his support for Gay Rights. I would point out that there is some pretty stark history here, which points to the strategy of Obama getting some big wins in Healthcare and the environment firs,t then going for "don't Ask Don't Tell". That gives him the cred he needs.

It also gives him time to work with the military and Congress to get this done with a little controversy as possible (though you know the Beckerheads will still go apeshit)

...she also makes a really good point with her highlighting of past peace prize winners and why Obama did deserve the prize I thought.

What? This is a pretty numbskull thing to say. American troops retreating from major urban operations was demanded by the Iraqi government. But since the Iraqi government is still riddled with corruption and incompetence, mercenaries are still operating [at slightly reduced levels], and you can be damned sure Maliki wants it that way. Hiring mercenaries to do our dirty work is shameful, disgusting and un-American - that was a Bush policy, and what exactly should Obama have done in this situation? It's a complex question, and we can't discount the regulations and limitations placed on private contractors under the new policies. Again, it's odious that they were even there in the first place. But Jesus Christ what the fuck are we, as Americans, who have a definite moral obligation to the Iraqi people we so recklessly fucked, supposed to do when every other NATO country is chicken-shitting out? You decry this as 'cowardly' but what in the green hell would be the 'courageous' thing to do here? This was an inherited disaster. Re-aligning military focus to Afghanistan is and has always been absolutely crucial, and fuck NATO for not backing us up on that. Pussies. I understand Iraq was a clusterfuck and their responsibility there could be considered non-existent, but Afghanistan harbors elements that launched attacks on the Pentagon, the WTC, the Madrid rail system, and London. An attack on one is an attack on all, remember?

The peace prize, as far as I can tell, involves his extremely significant work towards nuclear disarmament. Just because you don't know what the fuck is going on in the rest of the world doesn't mean everyone else is similarly ignorant. Replacing START II is absolutely massive, and the framework under active discussion is historic. And it's not just talk - moving the interceptor bases out of Eastern Europe was a significant part of this process, as well as a strategically superior option.

I think the Prize was poorly handled. There are far more deserving candidates out there, absolutely no doubt. Off the top of my head, human rights crusaders in Iran and China are more deserving, but guess what? You can't just hand the prize over to people in those countries cause you might get them arrested indefinitely. This was an unfortunate trade-off, with the hope that awarding Obama's 'potential' might give him additional cachet to press for human rights in China and Iran and elsewhere. Considering the sorry refusal of Obama to meet with the Dalai Lama, it's extremely unclear if this will have any tangible effect. We'll have to wait and see, I guess.

But saying he's done nothing is ignorant. Debate me, skroheim, not the Player Killer.

I normally don't like to cut and paste, but in this instance, I felt it was warranted.

Please read your sentence very, very carefully. Extremely significant?

If I recall correctly, the nuclear non-proliferation initiative is one of the only things Obama had the stones to put his name on during his rather brief stay in the Senate. I don't remember him touring the country or the world pounding nuclear disarmament into everyone's ears... and if he tried, then no one seemd to listen. Is India dropping their program because of the President's inspiring speeches? No? How about North Korea? Nah... Pakistan? Nope. Didn't happen, did it?

The Russians want talks, of course... since it allows them the opportunity to rebuild their arsenal, which has grown obsolete and needs upgrading! And they can do it above board and legally, since all they have to say is "What? No... these are not missiles. These are boosters to improve our space program!"

Even better... why even worry about nuclear weapons at this point? Biological agents can be weaponized and deployed far more effectively AND cheaply than a nuclear arsenal. Wow! Who knew?

But not to worry! Conventional weapons have not gone out of fashion just yet! The most recent use of military force in Europe, (the Russian-Georgian conflict last August) involved tanks and infantry, not nuclear weapons. Even if Russia sold its remaining nuclear weapons for cold cash, Russia's military would still pose an exceptionally credible threat to its neighbors, just as a China without nukes could still invade Taiwan... and win by sheer weight of numbers.

So do forgive me if I all of a sudden don't drop to my knees and polish the President's knob for flogging a dead horse of a foreign policy initiative. If no one wanted to play by the rules 40 years ago, then it seems a bit naive to think they will do so now... actually, naive is a bit of a stretch. I'm thinking Pollyanna here.

You want a Nobel-worthy president? We've already had one. He earned it by brokering peace between two nearly implacable enemies over 30 years ago. That peace, although tenuous at best, is still there to this day. I think it's a given that in 3 years, the Peace Prize will be the only event of some note in this administration.

Yes, of course traditional weapons are just as deadly, but its absolute insanity to act as if nuclear weapons aren't a mortal threat. Remember Yelstin pulling out the launch case because the Russians couldnt identify an ESA rocket launching a rocket? The Dead Hand is still in operation. Nuclear weapons are still directly pointed at the major metro areas of the US and Russia.

You don't do this by traveling the country and making speeches. (American's, by and large, don't seem to give a shit (given their reaction to this prize).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040101851.html

http://www.abcnews.go.com/m/screen?id=8659381&pid=77

http://www.newser.com/story/54969/ob...rms-talks.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...070501197.html

I do think it's extremely significant, and the Nobel committee did as well. Something like the war over Georgia could escalate out of control and we both have enough weapons to 'make the rubble bounce.' But again, I can understand disagreement on the award; but saying the nuclear engagement thus far is not significant is silly. You can bring up Reagan all you want, but those talks were spearheaded by the commies, because it was killing their budget, while Reagan was running the country into unprecedented debt building up the army for an Armageddon conflict and installing the pipe dream of Star Wars.

But at the basic level, we both feel the award would have been better off going to someone else (although your reason - that the President has done anything - isn't based in fact).

After thinking about it for a while, I think the real fuck-up in this situation was not awarding the Peace Prize to Morgan Tsvangarai. Absolutely. Mugabe and those motherfuckers killed the dude's wife, and he still has to work in Mugabe's government, with his wife's murderers, for the sake of national reconciliation and the hope of a democratic country. The more I thought about that, the angrier I got.

Not to mention, 2 days ago Russia updated their military doctrince, announcing they'll reserve the right to use nuclear weapons against smaller regional threats. A little warning to the satellite states that are causing them so much trouble.

So has anyone on the prize committee come out and said why they're giving Obama the peace prize? Because it seems like that would clear up a lot of this shit.

Actually, I wouldnt change anything. People just ignore facts, at least those who are against this award and yell about it all news-day long.

Actually, someone from the Nobel board put out a statement as to why they picked Obama. Naturally. It was ignored by most of the pundits looking for a reason to spin it any other way. But most intelligent people can find plenty of winners who they admire and who they find less accomplished. It all depends on how much stock you put into the peace prize anyways.

Yeah someone DID post a link to a Nobel Committee member talking about why they awarded Obama the peace prize. That someone was ME!

Here's some lunacy.

Yeah, because that million is going to do a lot more good putting a microscopic dent in the deficit than going to a charity.

But this slays me:

Oh, but wait -- what's this in parenthesis after the first mention of Obama being made part of the order?

And where was the hand-wringing article over that?

Sorry man, YouTube links scare me.

What everyone was waiting for: How Obama spent his $1.4 million Nobel Peace Prize.

It's a nice list. Good for him.

The Nobel Peace Prize is not Barack Obama fault. Although there is a lot of shit like the wars are 'now' his fault( yes I know he didn't start them, but he has yet to start ending them).