I don't agree on this one Dave, ... this article does Obama justice... www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/obama-deserves-the-nobel/article1319532/

Dave,

I drink plenty of wine and consume prodigious quantities of chocolate and cheese, so I have always assumed that I could understand European perspectives better than other Americans. Your last post suggest this isn’t so.

I’d appreciate it if you could explain why you think there is a parallel between the Norwegians and and Tristan and Isolde. Do you think they are stooges because they have awarded Nobel prizes to too many Americans?

Rather than prescribe a fattening diet of burgers, chips (crisps), and beer to help you understand my country’s political system, let me provide you with a few facts:

RE New Statesman’s take: Bush = effect scion of rich east coast elite handed presidency on platter, incompetent stooge of oil companies, shill for the rich, bully who ignored other nations and started two unnecessary wars.


Obama = Community rights advocate from humble family, earned his chops in in tough Chicago politics, inherited the wars, which he is now winding down while taking on the health care, the toughest issue in American politics since the Civil War. Unlike predecessors, he is engaging stakeholders and making compromises.


Gore = effect scion of rich family, totally unconnected to the electorate, unable to respond to dirty swift boating tactic partly because everybody knows that rich kids get huge preferences, including medals. many other equally heroic middle class or poor kids didn’t get any medals. In contrast to Obama, who earned every bit of his success, turns the other cheek to as a successful tactic. The only ones who take right-wing “birthers” seriously are the aging demographic of right-wing republicans who are dragging their party down with them to the grave.

Carter = Son of peanut farmer, awarded the Nobel prize for spending the 20 years AFTER his presidency for his work directly working for world peace, justice, and health, founded Habitat for humanity, which has built hundreds of thousands homes for the poor, successfully led the global effort to eradicate the loathsome parasite Guinea Worm -- which caused hundreds of thousands of people agonizing disability and slow death. It is just possible the Norwegians gave him the prize for these achievements?

Health care battle: Obama and few supporters are taking on the entire right wing, which wants to neuter him at any cost, and ideologues on the left who also hope he will fail because he isn’t pure enough or achieving all his agendas simultaneously. “Water which is too pure has no fish.” -- Ts’ai Ken T’an.

See todays NYT for a good discussion of the health care bill at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/opinion/11sun1.html?ref=opinion

“Progressives” are nuking themselves in the foot, since Obama’s failure sill lead to another dark ages in American society.

Your apparent disdain for tiny Norway’s admirable but “increasing desperate” efforts to influence global politics to make the world a better place. I admire them and I think they have often succeeded.

For now, I’m curbing my wine and cheese and taking up fish and akevitt.

Skoal!

Mark

The issue Mark and Cindy, is not the quality of the individual, but the appropriateness of giving a prize PRIOR to that quality being proved (or disproved) in practice. For each of his current battles, other have attempted the same without being given a prize.

The New Statesman is making a series of points (not all of which I agree with) that in practice in many areas Obama has yet to deliver on the promise.

In practice I fear the Norwegians have given ammunition to those who seek to bring Obama down (see my point on swiftboating.

I will make one general comment - one of the problems that I perceive with US politics is that it is polarised. One is either for something or against it. We see the same in the creationists v Dawkins polarities. A more nuanced approach might be desirable.

Hi Dave,

The committee seems to have finally listened to you: one should stimulate a weak positive signal. That's what they did. Very Cynefin :-)

Do you think - with me - we are on the eve of rewarding prizes to stimulate early in instead of long after the era of the laureate?

With regard to the stimulation of a weak signal....YES!

...And the next, the emergence.....of world peace after a few naive interviews and a couple of history backwards workshops?

I've always understood that the Nobel Peace Prize was reserved for those that have made a significant contribution to humanity by action rather than by intention or what they have not done. To award the prize otherwise seems to call into question its integrity.

Perhaps in the end Obama will only produce mediocre results as he seeks to bridge the polarisation of views within America. Compromise has a cost. The current US president was elected on a wave of emotion and good feelings; could this have been carried to the Committee that decided to award that Nobel Peace Prize. Sometimes we need reason to cut through perception.

Pragmatically if the award assists President Obama to achieve a significant contribution to humanity (not just America)then it will be deemed a good thing. But the goal posts have been widened to allow good intentions a scoring chance.

Dave,

Thanks for clarifying. My favorite publication besides the Economist has at least one columnist who heartily agrees with you. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/opinion/12douthat.html.

Does yu comparison of the Norwegians and Tristan have to do with their love predisposing Obama to political death by raising expectations impossibly high and by fueling his xenophobic domestic enemies with proof that he is an effete tool of Europeans, much as Gore was seen?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Mark

PS

Although the wine, cheese, and chocolate producers of the world probably are already on their knees as a result of my boycott, you may tell them I am now graciously lifting it.

I'm still buying that bottle of akevitt.

That's a very good article Mark, and it makes the point better than I did. The prize will limit Obama in what he does, not enable it. As to your question, I wouldn't go quite that far, but in essence yes. It was the point of the Tristan Chord, resolution creates more things to resolve.

Lest We Forget:

Henry Kissinger (born Heinz Alfred Kissinger in 1923) was awarded the same Nobel Peace prize in 1973.

“Kissinger is criticized and even accused of war crimes for the policies he promoted during the Vietnam war and for his role in the establishment of dictatorial regimes in Latin America (see chapters on Vietnam, Chile, Argentine and Accusations of War Crimes). . . .

“The policies that Kissinger promoted in Vietnam, and moreover his central role in orchestrating the illegal bombing of neutral Cambodia (conducted without the requisite congressional authorization) and the subsequent attempted cover up, have led to widespread accusations of war crimes. . . . "

Democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende died (September 11, 1973) as a result of CIA interventions: “The extent of Kissinger's involvement in or support of these plans [for a coup] is a subject of controversy. Yet it is proven fact that he was involved in what turned into the murder of a Chilean General, René Schneider, who was opposed to and stood in the way of a military coup.”

(Wikipeadia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger )

President Barrak Obama is now in strange company. Kissinger tried to return the prize money ... it was returned to him ... perhaps it should have been as pieces of silver?

Mark, what was/is the title of the article in NYT you referred to? It has been archived so your link does now work anymore. Best, Mireille