your two cents please

[hoorayiwake]

I don't know about all y'all, but when I opened my email this morning and saw the headline that Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, I literally yelped out loud and sloshed my tea all over myself. I know the peace prize has a controversial history, but still... this was a shock.

Now don't get me wrong -- I am a staunch supporter, even though like

Comments

[criada]

Yeah, I think it's a little early, but I think it sends a good message to the world. Like the Nobel website states, "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."
Undoubtedly Obama will disappoint, but at least the Nobel Committee is placing a little pin down right now to place another point on our ideal trajectory. Hell, maybe that's why they've struck early, before he lets everyone down.
At Making Light, one of the commenters points out that the Nobel has been used as an incentive before, with Yasser Arafat, et al. Peace in the Middle East didn't exactly happen, but at least we (assuming that "we" are aligned with the Nobel Committee) are able to say, "this is a goal which should be a top priority."

[hoorayiwake]

Well said, and thanks for the links. I guess I didn't realize before this morning that the peace prize could be used as a stimulus rather than a reward (call me uneducated for not realizing that it's happened before). It's an interesting concept - the prizes for physics and literature and everything else are based on specific things that have happened, but with peace it can be based on the potential to happen. But that may be completely appropriate, given than the peace process, speaking generally, is not as cut-and-dried as the sciences.

I wonder if this will steer his decisions about how to manage the military strategy in Afghanistan. Indeed, I wonder if the Nobel committee didn't have just such a thing in mind. (It would be kind of backwards, but it doesn't seem completely out of the question!)

[freespirit82]

Interestingly I just visited Alfred Nobel's birthplace while I was in Sweden. Had I known then that our president would be awarded the peace prize, I'd have made more of an effort to visit the Nobel Museum as well. It is interesting to think of the prize as a stimulus rather than a reward, but it does make sense. Hopefully with this reputation riding on his shoulders now, his future decisions will be steered more toward peaceful solutions.

[hoorayiwake]

I hope so too! I suppose I won't be the only one watching to see if/how this changes his approach to ... well, everything.

[anonymous]

This is Elizabeth, your long lost friend from Western, who has yet to respond to your email from a 1,000 years ago. :( I'm sorry!
Back on topic...
I was surprised as well. I didn't realize you could get the prize based upon potential as well as your past efforts, so count me in as the uneducated in that arena. I've also read that Bush was nominated once (although I cannot find a credible source that confirms this) so heck, Obama seems like a better pick to me. :)

[hoorayiwake]

HI! Nice to hear from you! :)

Oddly enough, I had the thought this afternoon that perhaps Obama wouldn't have been awarded the prize if not for his sheer contrast to Bush... i.e. without those last eight years, his election wouldn't have seemed like such a dramatic hopeful turn towards diplomacy, and thus wouldn't have garnered the attention of the Nobel committee in the first place.

But then again, the whole world would be different if we hadn't had W in office, wouldn't it?

[bugorama]

it was a big surprise to us too. i guess it was like, "hooray! you're not bush!!!!!" talk about a slap in dubya's face. ha!