Obama Gets the Nobel Peace Prize
despite Copenhagen's Climate
by Bent Lorentzen
October 9, 2009
Copenhagen Denmark
Fact is stranger than fiction.
As Denmark's Crown Prince Frederik gets increased local criticism for joining the ranks of wealthy felons who have controlled the International Olympic Committee (also links here) – some of whom secretly prearranged Chicago's thumbs-down vote prior to Obama's 5 hour visit to Copenhagen last week as a rebuke to America's retreat in funding the IOC – Norway today showed Obama an entirely different climate.
Obama has now been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize. This is likely to stir things in America. Many right-wing extremists will add to the hyperbolic rhetoric that Obama is a European socialist at heart. And also, Obama has not even a year under his belt in terms of the international politics of a seasoned peacemaker like Mandela or Jimmy Carter. However, the Norwegian (and Danish & Swedish) Nobel committee stated that it was Obama's domestic history of bridging often polar ideologies integrated with his visions as the current leader of the world's most powerful and influential nation that brought them to empower Obama's capacity to defuse the world's nuclear armaments and efforts to engage a very troubled and often viciously polarized world in meaningful dialog.
Getting metaphoric egg on his nonexistent beard last week, when he and Michelle excited Denmark with their brief visit, perhaps Obama will get a second wind to revisit Denmark for the December UN conference on climate change. He is expected in Oslo, Norway to receive the prize on December 10, right in the middle of the Copenhagen Conference. Oslo is only an hour away from Copenhagen in Air Force One.
A recent analysis of war game computer models by the US National Defense University predicts “climate change” as the single greatest threat challenging America's national security. This is not only due to the domestic upheaval as whole coastal regions of the US become impacted like New Orleans after Katrina and unprecedented droughts and wildfires in the US west, already in progress. Mostly the models warn of a complex but very understandable scenario of social chaos of literally billions of starving, homeless and otherwise displaced/marginalized angry human beings in refugee-status among the world's most unstable and poorest nations. All this adds to the winds feeding the fires of terrorism, since the US is seen as the world's largest accelerator of global warming.
Like many world leaders, Denmark's previous Foreign Affairs Minister, Niels Helveg Petersen, was shocked this morning by the Oslo announcement. But he stated that there was a plethora of good reasons why it should be Obama that gets the Peace Prize. “It's quite evident,” Petersen stated this Friday morning, October 9, “that Barak Obama has put the world on an entirely different course than the one characterized by his predecessor, George Bush.” He pointed out that already Obama has achieved a better relationship with Russia, has already begun to cut back on US long range nuclear weapons, and is working towards bettering the politics among the nations of the Middle East.
Note: Due to pressing work on a coming book, I will not be participating much in any debate this article might provoke.
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Comments: 80
You only choose to see the who and what and refuse to see the how and why which equals who.
Sad sad way to live.
Can you see the difference in effort vs getting something done?
Actually what Obama has accomplished is raise our recognition in the world back to what it had once been. He has been the ultimate diplomat and returned respect back to the US. And if you are stil not impressed perhaps you should have nominated someone who had accomplished more.
The only thing Bush cut was the throats of America for credibility in the World and innovation in the sciences. He does deserve something...not a prize.
• NOBEL PRIZES: World urges Obama to use peace prize to achieve results
Now more than ever, US President and surprise Nobel peace laureate Barack Obama faces the daunting task of living up to the expectations of world leaders and citizens, who look to him to solve a host of global issues.
That's not what the Nobel Committee said, George.
If peace is socialism, then they gave it to the right person.
:O\
(it's just a word often used by predatory capitalists and fundamentalist religions to scare folk so others can better control their personal resources)
But even "socialism,"as James points óut above, is a very misunderstood word by a great many people who see demons in anyone who does not believe exactly what they have been told to believe in.
Here's an exerpt from an article written by Albert Einstein:
Man is, at one and the same time, a solitary being and a social being. As a solitary being, he attempts to protect his own existence and that of those who are closest to him, to satisfy his personal desires, and to develop his innate abilities. As a social being, he seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life. Only the existence of these varied, frequently conflicting, strivings accounts for the special character of a man, and their specific combination determines the extent to which an individual can achieve an inner equilibrium and can contribute to the well-being of society. It is quite possible that the relative strength of these two drives is, in the main, fixed by inheritance. But the personality that finally emerges is largely formed by the environment in which a man happens to find himself during his development, by the structure of the society in which he grows up, by the tradition of that society, and by its appraisal of particular types of behavior. The abstract concept "society" means to the individual human being the sum total of his direct and indirect relations to his contemporaries and to all the people of earlier generations. The individual is able to think, feel, strive, and work by himself; but he depends so much upon society—in his physical, intellectual, and emotional existence—that it is impossible to think of him, or to understand him, outside the framework of society. It is "society" which provides man with food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language, the forms of thought, and most of the content of thought; his life is made possible through the labor and the accomplishments of the many millions past and present who are all hidden behind the small word “society.”
For the whole article, you can go to Why Socialism?
by Albert Einstein
I have a new acronym for the right:
D.I.R.T. = Democratically Induced Republican Tantrums!
So go pound DIRT!
He has to rely on advisors with experience from other administrations, who are leading him down the primrose path to puppethood.
All he needs is one opening to make his move, but I don't know if he is going to get or see that opening. Meanwhile stuff like this Nobel thing does not really help.
Most agree that he has not accomplished anything to deserve it, so it has some skewed meaning right before the Afghanistan escalation.
LINK: REUTERS
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE5981RA20091009?virtualBrandChannel=11621
I for one think he rightly deserves it. Unlike his counter parts in politics in this country he has shown over and over he is willing to negotiate with them and all he has gotten from them are lies and deceit, they say they want bipartisanship then say no to everything, that is not bipartisanship it is just the opposite.
:O)
:O)
As of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize that is up to the people who do the awarding, it appears they feel that it is not too early. That our President Obama deserves this award for his efforts in many areas of peace. But then most on the right would think it too early if he received it period in this century or any century.
:O)
:O)
Just today finished a week-long marathon of 15 hour workdays with the author's proof hardcopy and then in front of a screen - and with my broadband shut down so no Internet - to do edits so the book can come out in time.
Whew! And all I have done is work on a couple of photos in Photoshop for fun. Check them out when you get a chance I posted an article on one that I did over 100 variations, just show 32 of them and four variations of a lizard I photographed in my yard last week...
:O)
What does that mean? "War game computer models" predict the outcome of various war scenarios. Climate change affects both sides in a war; it is not one of the participants. Maybe "climate change computer models" are what you were referring to. In that case, there's never been one that has been correct. Ever.
See how narrow some folks think and navigate our society, it is amazing that they can find the nose on their face--I so often surmise.
“The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say,” the Times explained. “Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.”
War games and intelligence studies have reportedly identified several vulnerable regions—including sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia—which over the next two and three decades face food and water shortages and severe flooding, potentially “demanding an American humanitarian relief or military response”.
The National Defense University, a Defense Department funded institution, last December conducted an exercise examining the potential strategic implications of a major flood in Bangladesh sending hundreds of thousands of refugees into India, and triggering religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases, and widespread infrastructure damage.
The Defense Department is now including climate change in its strategic calculations, utilizing climate modeling based on advanced Navy and Air Force weather programs and research conducted by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
You know, this is why anyone who gains control of the world's resources, either politically or economically, has to have a multi-disciplinary backgropund... or at least plain common sense.
A comment like the one above truly saddens me. Plain common sense is all that's necessary to understand that if climate change destroys everything you hold dear, you just might get angry at whoever or whatever caused it.
:O)
Also you seem to forget you can't just abandon what was started by Bush no matter how badly he waged it. We helped the Afghans against the Russians then abandoned them and look where that got us in another conflict in their country.
:O\
Johnice, the dynamite Alfred Nobel worked on in Sweden & England in the midst of the Industrial Revolution was mostly to make the nitroglycerin discovered a few decades earlier, often used in mining and road work that killed many people, more stable and efficient.
In some ways, especially after an article near Nobel's death pretty much called him a merchant of death, Alfred closed his life on a similar note as Albert's (Einstein), who bore a heavy heart after Hiroshima for the way some human beings abused the fruits of his deeply insightful and analytical mind.
And that's why we now have the Nobel prizes. Alfred Nobel wanted to encourage the good, especially scientific, of humanity, following his death.
Some will bear fruit. Some will not. Some already have.
He continued with several examples of what his hopes are for future endeavors and missions he has before him.
with many thanks Bent
Mark
And you're UNHAPPY that he was awarded this honor?!? REALLY?!? SERIOUSLY?!?
Amazing.
:O\
Now more than ever, US President and surprise Nobel peace laureate Barack Obama faces the daunting task of living up to the expectations of world leaders and citizens, who look to him to solve a host of global issues.
And you predict it will get worse. How with people calling him Hitler or that he is a Marxist or socialist or fight against him and lie about him in every word they utter? If so then you are not predicting but only stating what is happening right now.
:O\
I can take from the way that you address our President that even if he single handedly won world peace you would or might call him one of many names, possibly Messianic or a glory hound, but since I can not, nor do I want to read the quagmire you possibly use for reasoning I will leave the name calling to you. I doubt you would give him credit for just being a man who wants the U.S. to be respected once again in the world and looked up to as a peace maker.
I would imagine that so far President Obama has done far more to achieve reduction of nuclear disarmament than either you or I have in our entire lifetimes. At least he has the Russians at the table for talks and has given the world more hope that the United States is not out to invade more countries we may not agree with but talk with them and negotiate rather than be a cowboy and pull our guns and shoot first then say they were dangerous and needed to be stopped. Not everything can be fixed with an army but some can be fixed with words. At least our present President feels that words and gestures are better than what the last President used for diplomacy.
Unfortunately some will always listen to those who shout the loudest against even their own country than to those who speak softly about the truth. Some will believe the worst before they find out what the truth really is, nor will they listen to reason as reason is not what they want to believe or accept. If another believes differently from them then the other is always wrong even when facts bare out the others words to be true. I can't change what you think nor how you feel only you can do that.
I for one listen to what is happening in the world and in our own country and am saddened by the lies, deceit and manipulation of information given out by some who are in power or would rather see this country fall so they can regain control to destroy it even more.
:O\
Having spent the majority o9f my adult life working in other nations I have a much broader slant on the events of the day as they happen. I know what the rest of the world thinks of the USA, our last few presidents & the joke that is the US Congress...both houses....! As an American I am sickened by this but do not see anything positive being done to change it...now or in the recent past...!
I am aware of certain handicaps that can make a person not read what he has read.
This isn't to personally insult you, but please, digest the food of what you read rather than regurgitating acid. Please, at least for the sake of our children, perhaps.
But remember, he's dealing with the challenge of the the inertia of several years of the worst government in US history.
In those terms, I give him a 4.0 og A+, in his ability to have already turned the tide of that horrific innertia.
No one else, not even Hillary, could have done what he's already accomplished