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Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

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Esoterik

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 21, 2009
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What's the reaction to this in the US? Someone on the BBC said that most US citizens would be scratching their heads wondering what he's done to deserve this. Personally I think he does deserve it, since taking office it feels like there has been a real thaw in international diplomacy.
 
Link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aHJwK9iL4ZAw

While I do agree that he has made:

“extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

I don't know if that should qualify him for a Nobel Peace Prize. Talk is cheap. I'd like them to award it to people who actually... make peace. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Israelis and Palestinians are still killing each other. Obama hasn't really made peace IMHO.
 
can someone please show me one thing that obama has accomplished in his lifetime to merrit the Nobel Peace Prize?

anyone?

bueller....

this is a disgrace to the Nobel award. seriously.
 
wow are you shitting me.

guess you can add Obama to the likes of Al Gore, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, and Yasser Arafat.

What a useless award.
 
i am an american scratching my head wondering why

it's like going through withdrawal then getting that amazing hit: we can't have it worse than bush. we went through the bush period, and now we have normal bullshit politics/diplomacy again, but it looks like hope and change and a new era of enlightenment because of the period we just went through 8)

^ hey Carter and Gore are cool
 
I honestly thought this was a joke when I first saw it. A nagging part of me, which expects a minimum amount of reasonableness from the world, still does.

Another part of me wonders whether this isn't a Swedish conspiracy to permanently discredit the Norwegians.

And finally I wonder whether this isn't a way for the Norwegians to try to show up the Danes, who after Obama's recent trip to Copenhagen may be perceived as vulnerable.

It's tough to sort out Scandinavian politics. Will this move the Finns to give Obama a free smartphone?

Anyway, this is the actual announcement:
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. 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.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."

Oslo, October 9, 2009
Click to expand...

Hmmm...

So Obama has said he would really like it if we could scale back nuclear weapons, that he'd prefer to resolve matters by diplomacy, and that he'd like for everyone to do more on climate change.

Those really are some amazing achievements. When I think about all the work that the speechwriters put in, the long hours with coffee and a laptop, the rehearsing, the effort that goes into saying nice things to people... And I know that nothing has happened yet. Nuclear weapons haven't been reduced, and in fact it looks like they may be spreading. No wars or conflicts have been resolved by Obama (he's only had 8 months).

But still. This is a President who is saying some really nice things, with really nice words. And he wants to do good things.

And we all know that in international relations, good intentions are the most important thing.

I will now open the floor to speculation about whether the Norwegians are using too much mercury in their vaccines.
 
All hype, no substance. The Nobel peace prize has officially become a political "The Earth Has Talent" type of game show.
 
Biggest joke of the nobel prize ever made. He hasn't accomplished one thing to make him deserve this, this is fucking ridiculous. Here he is escalating the war in afghanistan, setting up new missile defense programs etc etc... lmao. How can someone like mother teresa win the same prize as this dumbfuck we call president.
 
I don't think he's a "dumbfuck" and I voted for him, but my hesitation about Obama as a president is largely proving founded. I think that the Prize might actually hurt his approval ratings, because people will feel he got one of the highest honors a person can receive for, well... talking about doing things, not doing them.

From Time Magazine:

The last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise.

Inspirational words have brought him a long way — including to the night in Grant Park less than a year ago when he asked that we "join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand." (See pictures of Obama in Grant Park.)

By now there are surely more callouses on his lips than his hands. He, like every new president, has reckoned with both the power and the danger of words, dangers that are especially great for one who wields them as skillfully as he. A promise beautifully made raises hopes especially high: we will revive the economy while we rein in our spending; we will make health care simpler, safer, cheaper, fairer. We will rid the earth of its most lethal weapons. We will turn green and clean. We will all just get along. (See an interactive guide to Obama's first 100 days.)

So when reality bites, it chomps down hard. The Nobel committee cited "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." His critics fault some of those efforts: those who favor a missile shield for Poland or a troop surge in Afghanistan or a harder line on Iran. But even his fans know that none of the dreams have yet come true, and a prize for even dreaming them can feed the illusion that they have. (See pictures of Obama's European tour.)

Maybe the prize will give him more power, new muscles to haul unruly nations in line. But peacemaking is more about ingenuity than inspiration, about reading other nations' selfish interests and cynically, strategically exploiting them for the common good. Will it help if fewer countries come to the table hating us? To a point. But it's a starting point, not an end in itself.

At this moment many Americans are longing for a president who is more bully, less pulpit. The president who leased his immense inaugural good will to the hungry appropriators writing the stimulus bill, who has not stopped negotiating health care reform except to say what is non-negotiable, whose solicitude for the wheelers and dealers who drove the financial system into a ditch leaves the rest of us wondering who has our back, has always shown great promise, said the right things, affirmed every time he opens his mouth that he understands the fears we face and the hopes we hold. But he presides over a capital whose day-to-day functioning has become part-travesty, part-tragedy, wasteful, blind, vain, petty, where even the best intentioned reformers measure their progress with teaspoons. There comes a time when a President needs to take a real risk — and putting his prestige on the line to win the Olympics for his home town does not remotely count.

Compare this to Greg Mortenson, nominated for the prize by some members of Congress, who the bookies gave 20-to-1 odds of winning. Son of a missionary, a former army Medic and mountaineer, he has made it his mission to build schools for girls in places where opium dealers and tribal warlords kill people for trying. His Central Asia Institute has built more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan — a mission which has, along the way, inspired millions of people to view the protection and education of girls as a key to peace and prosperity and progress. (See pictures of the U.S. Marines new offensive in Afghanistan.)

Sometimes the words come first. Sometimes, it's better to let actions speak for themselves.
Click to expand...

Source
 
I agree with you 'posa--I think a majority of people are going "what-the-fuck" over this, and it really can hurt his credibility when the entirety of the U.S. and really, the entire globe has the magnifying glass directed at him at this crucial stage in his presidency, when everyone is wondering, "Did we elect someone that will fulfill his promises? Will he follow through?"

The question now is: should Obama graciously accept the prize, or should he dismiss it and claim that he really doesn't deserve it yet? What would be in his best interests? It's not like this is a conspiracy by the Obama administration and the Nobel Peace Center to absurdly blow his reputation out of proportion (although, hey, conspiracy theorists, have fun).

Several laureates have denied their prize in the past (such as Jean-Paul Sartre)--should Obama?
 
Yeah, I totally support Obama and think he will do great things in the next few years, especially if he can overcome all the resistance the right (and a good portion of the American sheeple) are giving him, but I must admit I'm a bit confuzzled.

I can only deduce that it is a symbolic gesture of faith by the world community, but that does seem to dilute what the NPP should be all about.
 
he should definitely accept it to be polite, but he should definitely use his speech to humble himself, and call the world/his country to act for the things he's ostensibly been awarded it for.
 
He'll do the same thing he does with every speach. Talk. Talk a lot, and not back it up with anything. Shit, he'll probably go and do the complete opposite of what he says.
 
Inedible said:
Several laureates have denied their prize in the past (such as Jean-Paul Sartre)--should Obama?
Click to expand...

I had not considered this possibility. I believe Obama should accept the prize graciously and do his personal best to live up to the high honor it confers. I am still a supporter, though I at present mildly disapprove of the job he is doing. I think he is still getting used to his job and has a significantly higher learning curve than I had expected. He is fantastically charismatic and I believe I would like him as a person. Michelle has also proven to be a tremendous asset to the White House, much more so than Hillary and her tacky, overpriced decor and unattractive personal style. I know many little girls of all races and ethnicities see her as a wonderful role model.

I have a lot of Republican friends for a lefty and they're all shitting bricks in their Facebook updates right now. =D

His approval numbers have been in a steady decline but have risen slightly with the announcement, which shouldn't surprise me as much as it does - see today's Rasmussen Report for source.
 
i'm still trying to figure out what this clown did to earn the prize. seriously, he did NOTHING!

his speaches are pretty. but he has done nothing to accomplish what he has said he would. nor do i think he will accomplish anything in the 4 years, god willing, he is in office. he is an empty suit. nothing more, nothing less.
 
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