YES WE CAN! » without doing anything
Most websites are blocked at work. There are only four websites that I can visit out of the websites that I tend to frequent. All of them are news related: BBC, Guardian, a tech blog and a UK politics blog. So when I saw the BBC news front page and saw Obama had won a Nobel Peace prize, I was baffled. I genuinely thought "WHAT THE FUCK? HAS THE BBC WEBSITE BEEN HACKED? SHIT! HOW COULD THAT BE?!" I snooped on over to the Guardian and there was Reality's affirmation. It was true.
The only thing I really held in high regard were the science prizes; the literature prize has been tainted since their response to Lessing and the peace prize - even if you put aside the divisive man and subject that is Arafat - has long been tainted. Three words: Kissinger and Rabin.
In terms of foreign policy, diplomacy, torture, terrorism, rendition, climate change and nuclear disarmament, Obama's policy doesn't differ significantly enough from Bush's. In many respects, it doesn't at all. So why would a man who had only been incumbent in office for TWO WEEKS before the nomination deadline deserve a peace prize? What had he achieved by then? And what has he achieved since? He is playing the same tricks and is being just as disingenuous as Bush was, particularly with nuclear disarmament and torture, terrorism and rendition.
Furthermore, why should a man who is currently in the middle of not one, but TWO wars be awarded a peace prize? To quote a friend: "ahmedinijad doesn't qualify he isn't engaged in any wars and his lame country never started a war before".
The sentence summaries everything wrong with US diplomacy: the interventionist state that concerns itself in non-existent world emergencies in which it has no business to get involved, but does so due to an unshakable paranoia of having moving shadow enemies. Who are they? They are Syria, Iran, formerly Iraq (now neutered), formerly Afghanistan (now neutered), Cuba, Venezuela, N. Korea, an on-again-off-again Russia and others. The fact that they bank-roll and support militia groups in Somalia and Pakistan diminishes any logical reason (not that any was used when faking the evidence) for intervening.
Not only that, but the main reason the Academy mentioned in their citation were diplomacy and nuclear disarmament. The nuclear disarmament issue has been a very new and recent one for Obama. So that can't be why he won. It's just a facade for the real reason why Obama won: he's the Rock Star President who isn't Bush.
So, considering Bush started threatening Iran about it's nuclear capabilities before Obama won the Presidency and that the second "secret" site has been known while Bush was uncumbent, what radical change and service Obama offered the world in lieu of nuclear disarmament? None.
All too often the mainstream media, who are predominately Right (over here at least) scream foul of the liberal bias present in our institutions and media. This final (middle finger) salute to the Republicans just makes it more difficult for the already weak and bickering Left/Liberals to stand up and argue back. Not only that, but it prevents them from having a respectable foothold in the media. Liberals supporting Liberals just "because" takes away any prestige and relevance of an award that comes with renowned international recognition. That recognition (not to mention the €300m prize award) should come with some semblance of achievement.
If this is the Liberal European Establishment's way of pressing ground and punching its weight, then it fails in its goals. The one thing that could be said about the significantly premature award is, to paraphrase a friend, that it boosts him against warmongers in the US and Israel who want to see him fail (Lieberman: "There will never be peace"). Considering many media commentators have hailed the Middle East (Peace Initiative) as what may define Obama's administration and make his legacy, this observation might be reasonable. But would his opposition really care anyway and is there a Middle East Peace Initiative?
But hey, if he has one, maybe I can have one and cross it off my "To do" list. After all, his other key line was "the audacity of hope". The only thing this award confirms is that Obama's team engineered one of the most successful election marketing campaigns in recent times.
The only thing I really held in high regard were the science prizes; the literature prize has been tainted since their response to Lessing and the peace prize - even if you put aside the divisive man and subject that is Arafat - has long been tainted. Three words: Kissinger and Rabin.
In terms of foreign policy, diplomacy, torture, terrorism, rendition, climate change and nuclear disarmament, Obama's policy doesn't differ significantly enough from Bush's. In many respects, it doesn't at all. So why would a man who had only been incumbent in office for TWO WEEKS before the nomination deadline deserve a peace prize? What had he achieved by then? And what has he achieved since? He is playing the same tricks and is being just as disingenuous as Bush was, particularly with nuclear disarmament and torture, terrorism and rendition.
Furthermore, why should a man who is currently in the middle of not one, but TWO wars be awarded a peace prize? To quote a friend: "ahmedinijad doesn't qualify he isn't engaged in any wars and his lame country never started a war before".
The sentence summaries everything wrong with US diplomacy: the interventionist state that concerns itself in non-existent world emergencies in which it has no business to get involved, but does so due to an unshakable paranoia of having moving shadow enemies. Who are they? They are Syria, Iran, formerly Iraq (now neutered), formerly Afghanistan (now neutered), Cuba, Venezuela, N. Korea, an on-again-off-again Russia and others. The fact that they bank-roll and support militia groups in Somalia and Pakistan diminishes any logical reason (not that any was used when faking the evidence) for intervening.
Not only that, but the main reason the Academy mentioned in their citation were diplomacy and nuclear disarmament. The nuclear disarmament issue has been a very new and recent one for Obama. So that can't be why he won. It's just a facade for the real reason why Obama won: he's the Rock Star President who isn't Bush.
So, considering Bush started threatening Iran about it's nuclear capabilities before Obama won the Presidency and that the second "secret" site has been known while Bush was uncumbent, what radical change and service Obama offered the world in lieu of nuclear disarmament? None.
All too often the mainstream media, who are predominately Right (over here at least) scream foul of the liberal bias present in our institutions and media. This final (middle finger) salute to the Republicans just makes it more difficult for the already weak and bickering Left/Liberals to stand up and argue back. Not only that, but it prevents them from having a respectable foothold in the media. Liberals supporting Liberals just "because" takes away any prestige and relevance of an award that comes with renowned international recognition. That recognition (not to mention the €300m prize award) should come with some semblance of achievement.
If this is the Liberal European Establishment's way of pressing ground and punching its weight, then it fails in its goals. The one thing that could be said about the significantly premature award is, to paraphrase a friend, that it boosts him against warmongers in the US and Israel who want to see him fail (Lieberman: "There will never be peace"). Considering many media commentators have hailed the Middle East (Peace Initiative) as what may define Obama's administration and make his legacy, this observation might be reasonable. But would his opposition really care anyway and is there a Middle East Peace Initiative?
But hey, if he has one, maybe I can have one and cross it off my "To do" list. After all, his other key line was "the audacity of hope". The only thing this award confirms is that Obama's team engineered one of the most successful election marketing campaigns in recent times.