Michael Winship: The Nobel Prize with an Asterisk
(Photo by Robin Holland)
Below is an article by JOURNAL senior writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.
"The Nobel Prize with an Asterisk"
By Michael Winship
Despite the graciousness of his speech at the White House last Friday, President Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize did have an air slightly reminiscent of Lincoln’s story about the man who was tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail – if it wasn’t for the honor of the thing he’d just as soon walk.
Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a member of the Nobel committee that chose him, told the Associated Press this week, “I looked at his face when he was on TV and confirmed that he would receive the prize and would come to Norway and he didn’t look particularly happy.”
After all, Obama has been President for barely nine months and yes, he has made some fine speeches in support of peace and bettering international relations. But was that enough to merit the award? Was he winning it more for who he’s not – George W. Bush – than for who he is?
Sadly, much of the initial reaction in the United States was churlish and scornful, ill-informed, and frankly, as un-American as those of the knee-jerk right who cheered when Obama’s quick trip to Copenhagen failed to win the Olympics for his Chicago hometown. We are less serious as a nation than we should be. The empty-headedness and inanity of much of the media and political response to the announcement bears testament to that unhappy truth. We would do better to see ourselves as others see us than to scream in protest and sarcasm when another part of the world wishes to honor our President and us.
But some of us sincerely felt that it may have been better for the President and the country NOT to have accepted the Nobel– to have made a gracious speech of thanks but no thanks – regretfully declining the award until he had proven himself worthy through actual deeds and positive signs of progress. If nothing else, it would have silenced at least some of the critics and given President Obama some breathing room to do what he says he wants to do without the restraints of even greater global expectations.
After all, take a look at the world around us, and America’s place in it.
President Obama talks the talk when it comes to climate change and nuclear arms control, curbing the atomic ambitions of Iran and North Korea, encouraging both harmony and diversity among the religions of the world. All well and good; even exemplary.
But little concrete action has been taken. For all the talk of closing our prison in Guantanamo, chances are that he will not meet his deadline of shutting it down within a year. Many of the transgressions on human rights that took place there and elsewhere in the name of a global war on terror continue, unresolved and unpunished.
He has spoken out for a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians but has made no progress, the window of opportunity slammed down on his fingers by Israel, with no help from Hamas. Our troops are still in Iraq, despite promises of significant withdrawals, and the Nobel announcement came in the midst of deciding whether or not to send even more American men and women into Afghanistan, where many of them may die. When told about Obama’s new honor, an Afghan bank worker said to a reporter from the LOS ANGELES Times. “I’m not sure I understand. This isn’t for peace here, is it? Because we haven’t got any.”
Better then to call this prize, as many have, including the Nobel committee, an aspirational award – the committee expressing its own audacity of hope. As the President himself said, “I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.”
According to an article by political scientist Ronald Krebs in an upcoming issue of POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, since 1971, the peace prize has been presented as just such an aspirational incentive 27 times. So the President is not alone. The head of the Nobel committee told reporters, “We do hope this can contribute a little bit to what he is trying to do.”
Consider the prize encouragement, a vote of support for vision and inspiration, a recognition that after eight years of a unilateral, destabilizing imposition of American exceptionalism on the world there’s an attitude adjustment working its way through our foreign policy. Dignity is part of it. So is humility – listening to other nations instead of ordering them around with the bluster of a swaggering county sheriff.
The potential is there. Whether Barack Obama can overcome or solve the dilemmas he inherited – or the crises created on his own watch by his own hand – will be proof of whether good intentions can become reality or simply pave that infamous road to hell.
In 1961, another young president, John F. Kennedy, met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev at a summit conference in Vienna, Austria. It was a time when Cold War tensions between the two countries were high, just weeks after the failed, US-backed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy pointed to one of the medals on Khrushchev’s lapel and asked what it was. The Lenin Peace Prize, said Khrushchev. Kennedy replied, “I hope you keep it.”
Now Obama has received the Nobel Prize for Peace. The months and years ahead will determine whether he deserves to keep it.
Comments
before funding any charity. please visit. REFORM MARCH OF DIMES.ORG (learn how charities misspend research dollars) and MRMCMED.ORG, read what the march of dimes spends 30 million dollars a year on, thank you for your time. ps, animal research has NEVER been validated. "work on prevention of polio was LONG DELAYED by an erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on MISLEADING experimental models of the disease in monkeys" albert sabin, m.d., during a 1984 house subcommittee. "if curing mouse cancers were enough. we would have cured cancer IN THE 60S" dr. donald morton, john wayne cancer institute.
Posted by: 4mula1 | October 31, 2009 5:31 PM
Let's survey the millions of Americans injured by Greenspan's view on FRAUD & see if boiling in oil comes up! (Guess that might be evil).
Billy Bob, Florida
It's be a waste of perfectly good cooking oil :-)
When people find "a flaw" in their "reality" regarding "fraud", there used to be "institutions" where we could put them until they figured it out - white coats, peaceful music, carefully crafted nutrition, specialty medication to induce "serenity"...
And we're back to "health care"....
Posted by: Anna D | October 21, 2009 3:00 PM
Greenspan knew the Melt down was due because the LTCM occurred years before and he & Congress had been warned by CFTC chairman Born in the PBS, FRONTLINE's "The Warning" by M. Kirk.
Now, was that evil?
Greenspan, Rubin, Sommers, Levitt knew "black" deals were being done & at grave risk to our economy as evidenced by the LTCM melt down.
Let's survey the millions of Americans injured by Greenspan's view on FRAUD & see if boiling in oil comes up! (Guess that might be evil).
Billy Bob, Florida
Posted by: Billy Bob | October 21, 2009 12:10 PM
I often use that quotation about "the honor of the thing" because it is so apt. But, let's attribute it accurately. Mark Twain wrote those lines in one of his lesser known books, "Roughing It" about, among other things, some Bernie Madoff-like shenanigans in attracting investors to silver mining "opportunities" in Nevada.
Posted by: a Larsen | October 17, 2009 2:11 PM
Hi "L",
Thank you for the quote.
Here's one from a "Jesus" site that continues to rationalize their censorship of a certain book with the argument that people are "not ready" for the information in the book and/or too "stupid" to read the book. They've been at this censorship for 3 generations now - up to and including numerous law suits that actully helped strengthen the "laws" of corporate personhood and intellectual property - the bowl of crazy we find ourselves in through the RELIGIOUS corruption of the judicial arm of government.
Yup, it is that deep of a "secret" story...
I'm bringing up this BOOK CENSORSHIP in 2009 in USA for consideration to the whole "why is there so much evil!?" question that everyone is asking...so please bear with me...back to the story...
They've (some small group of men who are self-proclaimed "elders-in-charge") have been losing control of the dissemination of the book with the growth of the internet.
So now they are carefully interjecting "typos" into e-versions of the book being cut and pasted from everywhere and anywhere, without editing control over CONTEXTUAL erros, that completely alter the original presentation of the thought of the author.
In brief, it's like re-interpreting ANY "holy book " before anyone has had a chance to read it and finally releasing the book to the "suffering masses" after this perfidous censorship has been completed.
Surely, no one believes that humanity could be suffering from so much delusional philosophical chaos WITHOUT the strict censorship of what REAL people are thinking and their freedom to converse about it?!
Here's the slap they give someone after they take away the rights of the person to continue to post on the site. That's the MO (modus operendi) of 8 years of brutal censorship - do NOT allow the person to defend themselves. Get it? They SILENCE you and THEN they start a trial against you.
So here's the case being made by the "holy" Censor of the site ("...we pay to run this site so we can throw anybody out..."):
He says, "I remember reecent similar situations, even here on this forum, with very brilliant people, certain of their rectitutde, who would "ride roughshod" over the arguments of others by sheer weight of intellect. This is something Jesus never did."
You asked WHY the "christian church" has been such a failure when it has had much more opportunity and time to make a difference.
Answer: Brutal censorship of TRUTH, misuse of quotes from the "bible", jesus-on-a-stick saves you from the consequences of your abuse of others...feel free to add to the list...this particular site limits itself, mostly, to the above limited list, hence the complaint of "brilliant people" riding roughshod over crap like "perception is reality". What NORMAL person wants to stroll through crap? You either clean it up or ride roughshod over it, no? :-)
The "church" has always had MORE money to spend on "censoring" GOODNESS because their shaman powers depend on us all wandering around in a stupor wondering why there is so much "evil". Enter "atheists" who also thrive from so much "evil" as proof that there is no "god" - huh? But we all know that the "authorities" left in places like the Vatican and the atheists/agnostics all have the same GOAL - giving to Caesar what is God's.
This kind of brutal censorship of GOODNESS through pseudo-religious avenues is, once again, at a high pitch in USA.
Religious freedom is ALWAYS under attack. ALWAYS. And the way it is done is through the INSTITUTION that evolved to NURTURE the "peacemakers" - the "church" itself. It's twisted, machiavellian political ploys that HAVE been going on, with increasing hysteria, ever since their reign of POWER in the european Dark Ages was broken by the Renaissance.
We have an ABSOLUTE moral obligation to protect GOODNESS. "Evil" is brutally censoring people living lives that are original and new expressions of TRUTH.
THAT's the fruit of warrantless surveillance - prove that it isn't!
Overnight, we'd see that "evil" is just a well paid cockroach with a megaphone being allowed to judge who is NOT Jesus-like.
Ironically, Jesus NEVER set that "test" up, did he? Did Jesus ever say we should judge each other by how well we are ape-ing Jesus? Heck, Jesus never even wrote anything down precisely so that we would not USE him to judge each other as jesus-deficient!
Religionists AND scientists in "gangs" are as creepy and damaging as street gangs, aren't they, in their own way?
What we have is a unification of goals by ALL gangs for the same "ends" - POWER.
What are they ALL doing?
Amplifying the "evil" by censoring TRUTH spoken by GOOD people
AND
taking away a QUALITY of life-maintenance
(that we EARNED for ourselves, btw, because we LABORED OVER CENTURIES TO EVOLVE IT)
that keeps people protected (good food, enough sleep, clean, protective environment) against becoming delusional through brain washing crap like "perception IS reality"....
Posted by: Anna D | October 17, 2009 2:08 PM
Another blog was having this same discussion and someone offered this article by Pastor Kieth Giles. I thought it needed to be passed on.
Is the church worthy of a Nobel Prize for Peace?
Kieth Giles pastor in Orange County, Calif., and blogger at “Subversive Underground,” raises a provocative point about the church:
He writes:
I see a lot of chatter on the internet today about Obama winning the Nobel Prize for Peace. Most of my friends are upset at the decision, and perhaps they have a point regarding our President’s meager list of accomplishments in the area of peace making.
Should Obama have won the Nobel Prize for Peace? No, the Christian Church should have, and this is what should concern us more. Rather than list our President’s lack of accomplishment in the area of peace, why don’t we look at ourselves and ask why we, the ambassadors of the Prince of Peace, are not known for our peacemaking? Why aren’t we upset at our own failure to advocate peace in our world?
Is the Christian Church largely known for her strong support of peaceful non-violence? Or is she mostly seen standing on the side of those who wave the flag and support the torture of prisoners and defend war as a means to resolution of conflict?
What we should be most ashamed of is our own failure to embrace the message of peace. What we should be most outraged about is our failure to be ministers of reconciliation.
Perhaps Obama hasn’t done enough to deserve recogition for bringing peace to this planet, but the Christian Church has done far less, and she has had much more opportunity and time to make a difference.
Posted by: L | October 17, 2009 9:46 AM
I think he deserves the spoils of war, and nothing more. And the Nobel prize is worth nothing now but a good thing from the past.
=
MJA
Posted by: Michael J Ahles | October 17, 2009 4:06 AM