October 9, 2009

You may ask who else was there who should have won the Nobel Peace Prize?

And to that I say: Who else? What are you talking about? When there is Barack Obama in the world why should anyone else get anything?

35 comments:

kentuckyliz said...

Neda!

Hoosier Daddy said...

Well its nice to see the Nobel Prize is now on par with winning an MTV video award.

Evidently nowadays if you just jetset the globe saying what a shitty country the US is, you're pretty much a shoe in.

MC said...

To retiterate:

Gandhi - nominated 5 times, never won.

Obama - nominated in February with all of 10 days in office, won immediately.

Hmmmm.

Atlashrugg said...

Mmm, so you don't really have to do anything to further peace and whatnot to get the Nobel Peace prize. You really just have to talk (a lot!), blather on endlessly about the evilness (LOL) of your country, grovel tail tucked beneath you to terrorists and depots and bankrupt a country. Mmm, well...then he's clearly the most deserving on the planet!!

Perhaps next year they should give the prize to Chavez, Mahmoud or lil' Kim-jung...

Peter V. Bella said...

Yeah, he can get it just because, just like everything else. Funny isn't it? Since the election the war protests stopped. No Code Pink People being thrown out of events. Bobble head comedians and actors are silent. No more ranting and raving about how many Iraqis re being killed. The troops are still there and in Afghanistan. They are still being killed and wounded.
I mean, he is the President. He is the commander in chief. They are his wars now. He owns them.
Maybe he should get the prize. Barak Obama brought Peace- to the protest community. They have disappeared.

Peter V. Bella said...

When they gave the prize to Carter I lost all respect for the legitimacy of the prize. When they gave it to Gore et al I thought the prize was a joke.

Giving it to Obama makes it a real sham. What has he done? He has not been in office long enough to stop running for president, let alone bring peace to, well, anything.

They should change the name of the award to the Nobel Just Because Prize. You get the award just because they decided to give away a million dollars.

Of course, he probably got it just because we lost the Olympics- like we ever had a chance in the first place. It is sort of a consolation prize.

Pastafarian said...

Here are a few suggestions:

General Petraeus. He's done more to promote peace in the Middle East than Carter or Arafat ever did.

Mousavi, the opposition leader in Iran.

Benazir Bhutto, posthumously.

And I don't know who this person is, but: Whoever is the most prominent voice of moderation in the Muslim world. I recall that you posted something about Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, but I'm not sure if he's significant enough to win a Nobel Prize; but whoever can steer Islam toward a reformation is doing more for the cause of peace than any politician.

MadisonMan said...

Giving it to Obama makes it a real sham. What has he done?

Unlike George W. Bush, Obama cares about what Europe thinks of the US. And the Nobel Committee wants to reward that kind of right and just thinking.

So Obama is getting the award because he is not Bush. Poor Hillary. It would have been hers had she only been elected President.

Amexpat said...

Morgan Tsvangirai was tipped to win in the Norwegian press yesterday when it was leaked that a single individual would get it. That would have been a much more worthy choice.

The choice of Obama is not generating a solid chorus of agreement here, as many previous choices have. Though Obama is generally popular, many feel that it was too early to give him the prize.

jag said...

I heard a rumor that Obama is going to win this season's Project Runway for a collection he would design if he weren't too busy being too busy to meet the Dalai Lama. .

Automatic_Wing said...

To not give the thing to Obama would have been unforgivably racist.

AllenS said...

I predict that Dave Letterman will win the Noble Piece Prize.

WV: tiver

Question, what will run up Chris Matthew's leg?

Anonymous said...

Let's fisk what the Nobel Committee said, per the CNN article:

"He rejected the notion that Obama had been recognized prematurely for his efforts and said the committee wanted to promote the president just it had Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990 in his efforts to open up the Soviet Union."

Actually, by 1990, Gorbachev had done quite a bit to ease tensions and open up his own country. I'm not wild about his selection, but at least he had done something to warrant it in the eyes of many.

""His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population," it said."

What does this mean? That my wife is nothing but a breeder, here to serve my interests? After all, a lot of people in this world think that.

"And Wangari Muta Maathai, the Kenyan environmentalist who won the 2004 Peace Prize, said the win for Obama, whose father was Kenyan, would help Africa move forward."

Really? How?

Their reasons are laughable.

karrde said...

My first thought was Linus Torvalds. Not because he has overtly done anything to promote peace, but his work has had more effect upon the world than Barack Obama's work has had, yet.

For a possible future Peace Prize:

If the demonstrators in Iran manage to bring down Achmadinijad's government, then I would nominate their leader (did someone say Mousavi?).

But I would want a group nomination, along with Eric S. Raymond, who has spent some time working (from America) on network-tools to help the protestors in Iran communicate, and circumvent the Iranian govt's Internet filtering.

Raymond originally made a name for himself in the geek community for other things, but success on that front would be Peace-Prize worthy.

raf said...

Any chance of Kanye West attending the Nobel ceremonies?

wv: fingre. Give it, brother.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Who knew that it would be easier to win the Nobel Peace Prize than a bowling trophy!!

If the man had one shred of decency, he would decline the prize on the basis that there are more worthy people and that he hasn't been in office long enough to effect any lasting peace policies.

He won't though. Wanna bet?

former law student said...

No more posthumous Nobel Prizes, per nobelprize.org:

Posthumous Nobel Peace Prizes
There is one posthumous Nobel Peace Prize, to Dag Hammarskjöld in 1961. From 1974, the Statutes of the Nobel Foundation stipulate that a Prize cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the announcement of the Nobel Prize. Before 1974, the Nobel Prize was also awarded posthumously to Erik Axel Karlfeldt (Nobel Prize in Literature 1931).

Le Duc Tho declined his Peace Prize, awarded jointly with Kissinger. Apparently Le couldn't believe it either.

Kirk Parker said...

Where is the April 1 dateline on that story?

former law student said...

My first thought was Linus Torvalds.

Come on! Steve Wozniak did more for the cause of world peace than Linus Torvalds ever did. Or the award to go to the developers of BSD Unix.

Michael Haz said...

Time magazine set to run a lengthy article condemning Sarah Palin for having never won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Unknown said...

Borglum. Don't care if the rules go against posthumous awards. About a billion poor people around the world are NOT posthumous right now because of Borglum's work.

Stupid fucking committee. Stupid fucking award. And if Obama wants to join the elite company of Carter, Arafat, and Gore, well them fuck him, too.

reader_iam said...

Stupid fucking committee. Stupid fucking award.

I'm with John on this.

Unknown said...

Sorry, I meant "Borlaug," actually. GM crop guy, not Rushmore guy. Faulty brain access mechanism there.

Joe said...

Benazir Bhutto

You do realize what a creepy awful person she was? She's the bitch who allowed nuclear secrets to be sold. She presided over death squads. There were major reasons she was overthrown and that overthrow was welcomed by the populace.

She was shot being stupid. Oh, now I understand. Being an idiot while promising to be something else is now the criteria for winning a Nobel Peace Prize.

Automatic_Wing said...

Being an idiot while promising to be something else is now the criteria for winning a Nobel Peace Prize.

Exactly!

holdfast said...

Morgan Tsvangirai - why? Because he has endured decades of abuse, including severe physical abuse, in his efforts to save his people from a slow genocide? Because he has won multiple elections but never allowed to take office, and has been beaten for his efforts to do so. Because he continues his efforts despite the crushing vice of a despotic regime and the overwhelming apathy of the "international community"?

Hey Obama won an election with the overwhelming support of the media, the international community and Chris Buckley.

That Tsvangirai guy is a total pussy.

miller said...

The reason for the award? "Not George W. Bush."

And that is why I also deserve the prize. As do 6.x billion other people.

Why not just rename this the "Not George W. Bush Prize" and be done?

Anonymous said...

Christian Fuhrer should have won. He was the Pastor of St. NikolaiKirche in Leipzig Germany. He organized weekly Peace Prayers during the Cold War that in 1989 grew into the Monday Demonstrations. Today is the 20th anniversary of the breakthrough during the Peaceful Revolution when the Stasi backed down and let the people march through the streets with candles chanting "Wir Sind Das Volk!" One month later the Berlin Wall came down. Christian Fuhrer was a leader who used peaceful means to topple a totalitarian dictatorship and help end the Cold War without a shot.

Paul Brinkley said...

(gets up)
(turns on radio)

"President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize!"
(turns off radio)
(goes back to bed)


wv: vanati - ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

kentuckyliz said...

Black news commentator on CNN just said he at first thought it was a joke and snorted.

Another CNN commentator said this diminishes the Nobel Peace Prize because it should be awarded for accomplishments. He won! For what?!

OMG CNN has joined the VWRC

kentuckyliz said...

Bono deserves it more than Barry.

kentuckyliz said...

I wish Kanye West would have grabbed the microphone and spoke up for another worthy nominee who didn't win.

Ritmo Re-Animated said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ritmo Re-Animated said...

Of course, if someone took her blogging seriously she might actually consider naming the people whom she thought were more deserving.

Maybe some people's hopes and positive thoughts don't revolve around Obama so much as other people's bile and negativity revolve around him.

Oh, the irony of people who harbor such reflexive belligerence pretending that they have an interest in peace - let alone a good idea of who has done the most to promote it!

And BTW, I actually thought the pick was ridiculous when I heard it as well. Until I thought more about it, listened to the arguments, and lastly, saw the aggressive bile of the right splayed all over these very pages.

So it looks like there were indeed other considerations, including possibly political and inspirational motivations, to the pick.

Well, I suppose that putting obsessively belligerent militarists and other troublemakers in their place will necessarily be a political struggle - at least in America.

P.S. Props to Pastafarian for at least proposing other names of people whom he found more deserving. These comments don't apply to him - or to anyone else who bothered to do some homework about this matter.

Ofc. Krupke said...

the aggressive bile of the right splayed all over these very pages.

What you're reading is mostly mockery. Lighten up, Francis.

Oh, and Greg Mortensen should have won.