A peace of my mind
Oct. 9th, 2009 11:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matthewdalyI've long believed that organizations have the right to give subjective awards to whoever they want, and the public's recourse is to ignore them if they make dumb choices. If you want to decide that Forrest Gump was the best movie of 1994 or that the entire Universe should be represented by an eighteen year-old Venezuelan woman with breast implants and the talent to wear a bathing suit and high heels, then who am I to stop you? You just get tossed into the "Yeah, whatever" pile.
Now joining you in the "Yeah, whatever pile": the Nobel Peace Prize.
Granted, it's been close to the edge for a while now, what with their recent laureates including microcredit lenders and tree-planters. These are surely worthy causes, but I'm just not clear that they're promoting peace so much as prosperity and wellness in traditionally under-served communities. If I can squint, I can sort that a global environmental catastrophe would drive the world into local wars for shifting resources and that Al Gore deserves some sort of peacelike recognition for his efforts to forestall such an event, but it seems to me that the award should lift up people who actually negotiate treaties, reduce weapon proliferation, and embiggen non-combatants in war zones.
But Barack Obama hasn't even done the small stuff yet. "[E]xtraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples?" Lolwhut? I presume that the plural means that he's done that at least twice, but I can only think of deciding not to build the dopey missile shield in Eastern Europe and I'm not even convinced that that's extraordinary so much as simply rational. At the same time, if anything we're looking at a buildup of our military posture in Asia and the excesses in post-9/11 liberty curtailment are being entrenched rather than sunsetted. Is this just about how he is being rewarded for not being George Bush, or that he is the flag-bearer of post-racial America or that he paid our UN dues, because I'm going to bust my sides from laughing if they think that's worth the Nobel Peace Prize.
As you read in the papers that he is the third sitting President to win the award, be sure to keep in mind that hindsight has not made the selections of either Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson endorse the decision-making power of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but at least those guys were selected for things that they had done rather than things they promised to do if elected.
Now joining you in the "Yeah, whatever pile": the Nobel Peace Prize.
Granted, it's been close to the edge for a while now, what with their recent laureates including microcredit lenders and tree-planters. These are surely worthy causes, but I'm just not clear that they're promoting peace so much as prosperity and wellness in traditionally under-served communities. If I can squint, I can sort that a global environmental catastrophe would drive the world into local wars for shifting resources and that Al Gore deserves some sort of peacelike recognition for his efforts to forestall such an event, but it seems to me that the award should lift up people who actually negotiate treaties, reduce weapon proliferation, and embiggen non-combatants in war zones.
But Barack Obama hasn't even done the small stuff yet. "[E]xtraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples?" Lolwhut? I presume that the plural means that he's done that at least twice, but I can only think of deciding not to build the dopey missile shield in Eastern Europe and I'm not even convinced that that's extraordinary so much as simply rational. At the same time, if anything we're looking at a buildup of our military posture in Asia and the excesses in post-9/11 liberty curtailment are being entrenched rather than sunsetted. Is this just about how he is being rewarded for not being George Bush, or that he is the flag-bearer of post-racial America or that he paid our UN dues, because I'm going to bust my sides from laughing if they think that's worth the Nobel Peace Prize.
As you read in the papers that he is the third sitting President to win the award, be sure to keep in mind that hindsight has not made the selections of either Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson endorse the decision-making power of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, but at least those guys were selected for things that they had done rather than things they promised to do if elected.
