Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize????

[Myra Bronstein]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mikes-...se-earn-it

October 9th, 2009 2:14 PM Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize -- Now Please Earn it!

Dear President Obama,

How outstanding that you've been recognized today as a man of peace. Your swift, early pronouncements -- you will close Guantanamo, you will bring the troops home from Iraq, you want a nuclear weapon-free world, you admitted to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, you made that great speech to the Islamic world in Cairo, you've eliminated that useless term "The War on Terror," you've put an end to torture -- these have all made us and the rest of the world feel a bit more safe considering the disaster of the past eight years. In eight months you have done an about face and taken this country in a much more sane direction.

But...

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of what is quickly becoming your War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now.

That's what a true man of peace would do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do -- capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else's Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. Your opposition has spent the morning attacking you for bringing such good will to this country. Why do they hate America so much? I get the feeling that if you found the cure for cancer this afternoon they'd be denouncing you for destroying free enterprise because cancer centers would have to close. There are those who say you've done nothing yet to deserve this award. As far as I'm concerned, the very fact that you've offered to walk into the minefield of hate and try to undo the irreparable damage the last president did is not only appreciated by me and millions of others, it is also an act of true bravery. That's why you got the prize. The whole world is depending on the U.S. -- and you -- to literally save this planet. Let's not let them down.


[On edit: Bold emphasis mine.]

[Myra Bronstein]

[quote=Magda Hassan]...
...
Whatever. I'm tired of living in bizarro world.

Alice
It would be so nice if something made sense for a change.

:o

I've got it! I'm gonna open up a Reality Fantasy Camp. What the hell. I want a piece of the fixed enterprise pie.

Those few proletariats who have a job and are bored with baseball fantasy camp can come and enjoy the world as it should be:

True democracy with clean elections, a government that represents the people and funds the clean elections, corporations and banks strictly regulated by said government, strong labor unions protected by this same government, no lobby money in elections or government, endangered species protected, all domestic animals safely homed and neutered, Jon Stewart president of the US, everyone who is willing and able to work makes a living wage and has a satisfying job where they're treated with respect, UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE FOR ALL, and indoor plumbing that dispenses lemonaid as well as water.

I'm pretty sure that my Reality Fantasy Camp would have a waiting list a mile long.

[Myra Bronstein]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-robert-...15715.html

Dr. Robert Epstein, Author, editor, radio talk-show host, and longtime psychology researcher
Posted: October 9, 2009 03:13 PM

"This isn't what it seems. It's not really a Nobel Prize. It's a "Thank-God-You're-Not-Bush" Prize. We're witnessing what research psychologists call a "contrast" effect, occurring in a grand way in an unlikely place.

Yes, many of us at home have mixed feelings about Obama because our economy is still sinking (although more slowly, of course!) and because our young men and women are still dying almost every day in Afghanistan and Iraq. But to people in other countries, such as some dowdy old folks sitting in a posh drawing room in Stockholm, Obama is the greatest thing since Saab introduced the heated driver's seat in 1972.

Even though, unlike Nobel laureate Mother Teresa -- who toiled helping the poor of India for 30 years before getting the prize -- Obama hasn't actually accomplished anything yet, he is, following George Bush, a Great Relief to the World, especially the Bush-bashed world outside the U.S.

The contrast effect is a real and powerful phenomenon that has fascinated psychologists for more than a century. The basic idea is simple: a prolonged experience with a stimulus that has strong negative or strong positive value distorts the way we view new stimuli of the same sort.
...
The contrast effect works in many domains, including the political. And yes, it can even cause intelligent, well meaning people to confuse bringing peace to people with giving inspirational speeches about bringing peace to people.

It's not a Nobel Prize. But now that he has it, maybe he'll live up to it."


[Bold emphasis mine.]

[Peter Presland]

Dmitry Orlov on that prize:

I've said it here before: Obama is the new Gorbachev, the smiling face behind the crumbling imperial façade, the personable, non-threatening loser. Gorbachev got his Nobel Consolation Prize in October 1990; a little less than a year later the USSR was no more and he was unemployed.

In awarding him the Peace Prize, the Nobel committee actually did some good: by reaffirming his legitimacy as a leader, it helped to weaken the hand of the conservative forces within Russia, which later staged an unsuccessful coup in an effort to reclaim control of the dissolving empire.

Gorbachev certainly deserves credit for making sure that the USSR disintegrated with a whimper and not a bang. May Barak Obama be just as successful in completing the dissolution of the USA, quietly and without any undue bloodshed. Moving forward, I wish him a long and happy unemployment.

Gorbachev wins Nobel peace prize

By Jonathan Steele in Moscow
Tuesday 16 October 1990
guardian.co.uk

"President Gorbachev yesterday won the world's biggest consolation prize. He took the Nobel peace award for losing the Cold War, becoming the first communist leader to win the trophy worth £360,000 after dismantling the system his party spent 70 years creating.

"The Nobel prize committee in Oslo did not quite put it that way. It cited Mr Gorbachev for "his leading role in the peace process" which today characterises parts of the world....

"In Moscow, hit by shortages of basic foods and consumer goods, the mood was more reserved. When the president of the Supreme Soviet, Anatoly Lukyanov, announced the news to MPs, they applauded for barely five seconds. Gennady Gerasimov, the foreign ministry spokesman, said: "We must remember, this certainly was not the prize for economics..."

...Nor is it the prize for economics this time around! If anything, the financial hole the USSR left behind was a whole lot smaller.

Now, some people think that Obama isn't doing a good job. He isn't. That's because it's not a good job. It's not even a bad job. It's a downright terrible job. But somebody's got to do it, and that somebody just won a Nobel prize, so he must be doing something right.

And a wry comment: "Did you hear the one about a black man being given the Nation's worst job?

[Peter Lemkin]

This bizarre move has cheapened the Nobel Peace Prize and will do nothing much for America or the Administration, IMO. It apparently was a sigh of relief that Bush was gone [Amen!], but we have the same forces behind Obama, if using a 'kinder and gentler' kind of corporate imperialism (sic). He has talked the talk, but has NOT walked the walk. I have lost all hope for much positive to come out of this Administration and this President, sadly. Unless he becomes a JFK [and likely would suffer the same fate!], he is lost and our Nation with him.........Prize or no prize....the money comes from dynamite anyway....how fitting! tupido3:

[Helen Reyes]

I came across a webpage where the Australian who co-invented Gardisil was nominated and seemed a serious candidate for the Nobelians. I guess he didn't get it: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medic...ates/2008/

When Gorbachev got it in 1990, he had been blockading Lithuania for almost a year. He was in charge when Soviet troops fired on civilians from tanks and machine guns and ran over civilians with tanks at the Vilnius television tower in January, 1991. This was followed by the murder of Lithuanian volunteer border guards. It was right around the same time Gorby gave his OK for Bush Sr to attack Iraq too.

I find this award ominous and weird of course. Lately Webster Tarpley has been saying we need to check Obama's age, not just his birthplace. Look at the pattern: he pulls this media stunt of being UN Security Council president (and that's all it is, a stunt), then goes on to the G-## conference to lead the circus while cops and troops deploy exotic weapons against his opposition. Next week he personally intervenes on behalf of Chicago at the Copenhagen IOC, then this.

If you follow what I'm saying, Obama is living some adolescent king-of-the-world power trip ego gratification fantasy. He staged everything except the Nobel, but he could have staged that too.

His occult backers seem to be letting him achieve the outward signs of ceasar/antichrist, or are letting him fall on his own sword. Occult meaning hidden, but it is interesting they chose UN SecCoun meeting S/6191 for his "coming out" party. 6=hexa, 9=ennea.

[Mark Stapleton]

It's pretty wierd, but the world is getting wierder by the day, imo.

Maybe the Nobel Committee was engaging in a bit of activism here, by trying to influence Obama's pending decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. It would look ridiculous if the Nobel Peace Prize winner decides to up the ante in Afghanistan.

[Charles Drago]

Please answer the following question in thirty (30) words or less:

I like peace because_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[Gary Loughran]

An interesting note...the final nominated submissions for the peace award must be received by February 1st each year. Hmmm!

Yes, not being Bush, is helpful for acheiving the award. Carter and Gore received the award as Bush was mounting and stepping up wars. There is likely also a racial element in giving the prize to a non-white president, however, it is most likley a political statement from a highly political organisation.

[Peter Presland]

Sobering stuff from Michael Chussodovsky at Global Reasearch:

<Snip>
"We are the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US in partnership with NATO and Israel has launched a global military adventure which, in a very real sense, threatens the future of humanity.

At this critical juncture in our history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President and Commander in Chief Barack Obama constitutes an unmitigated tool of propaganda and distortion, which unreservedly supports the Pentagon's "Long War": "A War without Borders" in the true sense of the word, characterised by the Worlwide deployment of US military might.

Apart from the diplomatic rhetoric, there has been no meaningful reversal of US foreign policy in relation to the George W. Bush presidency, which might have remotely justified the granting of the Nobel Prize to Obama. In fact quite the opposite. The Obama military agenda has sought to extend the war into new frontiers. With a new team of military and foreign policy advisers, the Obama war agenda has been far more effective in fostering military escalation than that formulated by the NeoCons.

Since the very outset of the Obama presidency, this global military project has become increasingly pervasive, with the reinforcement of US military presence in all major regions of the World and the development of new advanced weapons systems on an unprecdented scale.

Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of "democracy".

Both the Obama administration and NATO are directly threatening Russia, China and Iran. The US under Obama is developing "a First Strike Global Missile Shield System"

He believes there was high-level collusion between the US Government and the Prize Committee. A series of related pre and post announcement events makes the contention plausible:

The Nobel Committee says that President Obama has given the world "hope for a better future." <Snip>

The granting of the Nobel "peace prize" to president Barack Obama has become an integral part of the Pentagon's propaganda machine. It provides a human face to the invaders, it upholds the demonization of those who oppose US military intervention.
The decision to grant Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was no doubt carefully negotiated with the Norwegian Committee at the highest levels of the US government. It has far reaching implications.
It unequivocally upholds the US led war as a "Just Cause". It erases the war crimes committed both by the Bush and Obama administrations.<Snip>

More significantly, the Nobel peace prize grants legitimacy to an unprecedented "escalation" of US-NATO led military operations under the banner of peacemaking.
It contributes to falsifying the nature of the US-NATO military agenda.<Snip>

Within hours of the decision of the Norwegian Nobel committee, Obama met with the War Council, or should we call it the "Peace Council". This meeting had been carefully scheduled to coincide with that of the Norwegian Nobel committee.
This key meeting behind closed doors in the Situation Room of the White House included Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and key political and military advisers. General Stanley McChrystal participated in the meeting via video link from Kabul.

The whole article is worth reading.

I see no sign that the US/NATO are on anything other than a determined and accelerating path to create and enforce an unchallengeable global hegemony - a New World Order - and I fear it will end in disaster in the very near future.