Film at 11: Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize -- why, again??

[athelind]

Am I missing something?

Apparently, "striving for nuclear disarmament" by rattling sabres at Iran and North Korea, "supporting international bodies" like the WTO, the World Bank, and other corporate bulwarks, and "rekindling hope" by Not Being George Dubya Bush qualifies a man for the Nobel Prize, despite what Your Obedient Serpent perceives as a continuation of all of Bush's most rephrehensible policies, at home and abroad.

Okay, not all of Bush's policies. President Obama isn't actively rude to other countries.

But, ten thousand thunders! how is it that I find myself inclined to agree with Neocon Republicans and Taliban members about this?

If Reagan was Teflon, Obama is Kevlar. His opponents are so reprehensible that I wind up aligning myself with him simply to distance myself from them. It's like he generates a Godwin Deflector Field: I'm gonna stand over here, with Barry, so none of The Stupid gets on me.

Seriously, I know there are non-North Americans reading this. What's your perspective on the President and the Peace Prize?

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Update: rodant_kapoor has his own take on what this represents, and it does make sense, from a certain point of view.

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Update: circuit_four has another good take.

Good stuff is popping up in the comments here, as well; thanks, gang!

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Update: rikoshi makes some good points On Obama.

And that guy in the Oval Office had was as astonished as anyone else, it seems.

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Update: Meanwhile, The Washington Post puts it all in perspective by pointing out that the Peace Prize has also, historically, been awarded for "aspirations". (Of course, those who have a medical background know that if you aspirate something, you may choke on it.)

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Most of these updates are for my own future reference, but also for interested readers.

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Comments

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

I figured it would perhaps make more sense to award such a thing at the end of his presidency, perhaps taking in everything he had done during such a time. And even then, I'd be considering things more along the lines of actually stopping wars, or ACTUALLY preforming a nuclear disarm. Getting the ball rolling is nice and all, but I'm not sure if its really worth that particular award. Either way, its already done, so good for him. ^^

[zeeth_kyrah]

If the President is the one who has to disarm a nuclear weapon, then things have escalated quite a bit past "too far"...

[toob.livejournal.com]

As I said in someone else's journal:

At the point of his nomination, I agree it was premature.

But if you really think about it, what other world leader has done more on the international stage since then? We don't see it as much from inside the U.S., but the flavor of international discourse has markedly changed. He's completely turned the U.S.'s world image around, repositioned our country as a force for good, for international cooperation rather than for unilateralism. He's been the first U.S. President to acknowledge Palestinian legitimacy, and he's made major advances toward nuclear disarmament with Russia.

Also, the Nobel Peace Prize is not always awarded for major accomplishments made -- sometimes it is awarded for those who are just starting out, in recognition and in support of their efforts.

Honestly, I'm just happy for a reason to be proud of my country -- our last leader didn't afford us many opportunities for that.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Well, I live in North America but I am a non-North-American, and this is my take. (http://silmaril.livejournal.com/720550.html) for what it's worth.

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I'm a little bit gratified that the American right WILL take it as the poke in the eye that I'm sure it was intended to be. Their howls of indignation will bring a smile to my face. But the pleasure will be greatly diminished by the fact that I'll know they're right -- he hasn't really earned it. It is just another political gesture. That will diminish the rhetorical power of the Nobel committee, too, and that's a shame. I really, really wish they'd waited until Obama did something truly notable.

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry -- but I think this just signals that our diplomacy efforts were at an all-time low.

To think that Obama gets any award for what should be expected of any US president only shows how pathetically low Bush dropped our standards of world interaction.

Obama doesn't deserve this award. Bush deserves jail time for genocide.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I like Obama okay - I'm not wild about the guy, the way I was this time last year - but giving him the Nobel Prize for what he's done, is a little like awarding someone a PhD for coming up with an interesting thesis.

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

BLAIR was "Teflon Tony"....

Let the nice man have his award.... at least he's trying...

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

I'm not opposed to him getting a peace-prize, persay. I'm mostly saddened that our standards for a decent leader have fallen so low that a middling, luke warm centrist democrat is seen as the big thing.

To be fair, he has fixed a lot of the diplomatic fuckups we've dealt with the last 8 years, and he had the balls to bring to the table a lot of things the rest of the developed world takes for granted.

Don't take this as me disliking the guy, because I do think he's pretty keen as a person. He's in the position to step up and fix a lot of shit, and he's mostly compromising with a big group of nationalistic crazies who believe that science is a lie and it's their job to bring back heaven (by starting wars).

[thoughtsdriftby.livejournal.com]

thinking: wow, has last year really been that slow for world peace?

then thinking, he's really just holding it for the US voters who got him there.
Ending the last administration was quite a move towards world peace.

If he stops representing those voters it should be taken away.

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I may have to pull the race card on this, simply because he's the first man of his race in this position of power. Would we be giving the award to McCain? Most likely not, given his standings with our international wars. But I believe that if Hillary had won the election, she would be in place to possibly win the Peace Prize herself, simply because of the barrier she would have broken. By that alone, Obama seems to have been taken into consideration. Is being 'the first' enough, at this point in time? No, it's premature. But his rise to power from seemingly very little experience shows that he can certainly be capable of a lot, and that, I suppose, is one of the things they're looking at in his being considered.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn10092009.html - Starts out this:

"I suppose we should not begrudge Barack Obama his Nobel Peace Prize, though it represents a radical break in tradition, since he's only had slightly less than nine months to discharge his imperial duties, most concretely through the agency of high explosives in the Hindu Kush whereas as laureates like Henry Kissinger had been diligently slaughtering people across the world for years." I found this amusing.

The Nobel peace prize has no legitimacy in my eyes, so while I was surprised that Obama won I can't be surprised that the Nobel committee is foolish enough to award him the prize. They suck.