?
I heard that on the alarm/radio this morning and thought it was just the talk show hosts cracking jokes. Then, I realized they were being serious and my first thought was, "For WHAT?"
As it turns out, Obama has actually won the Nobel Peace prize for being Not-Bush. Or at least that's what it sounds like to me.
Obama won the Prize, according to the committee, for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
The committee also said Obama has "created a new climate in international politics."
What's that mean? What's he done?
It seems like we're being rewarded for merely Not Being Bush. The US, with the election of Obama, has had a turn away from Cowboy Diplomacy to adult diplomacy, and that is something that the Nobel folks must have decided was important enough to encourage.
Weird.
I'd think it have been better to wait to see if Obama actually took some actions that more directly led to peace (of course, I AM glad that he has changed the tone of diplomacy and foreign affairs, but still...) than just to honor him for being Not Bush.
All the same, it will be amusing to watch the Obama Haters' collective heads exploding today. Might be painful, though, considering how far up their respective rumps most of those heads are...
=====
UPDATE: According to CNN:
Obama was selected not for substantive accomplishments, but for his "vision" and inspiring "hope" at the beginning of his presidency.
"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," the committee said, explaining its decision.
In comments at the White House on Friday, Obama said he did not view the award "as a recognition of my own accomplishments. But rather as an affirmation of American leadership. ... I will accept this award as a call to action."
69 comments:
I agree, I can't wait to watch people's heads explode.
But as we were driving into work today, listening to this on NPR (natch), I kept asking, "So, could I have some examples, please?" I mean, sure I like all the happy nice things they were saying about Obama, I just wish they'd given some concrete examples of these things he supposedly has done.
Weird decision if you ask me.
But, as I've been reminded many times by my friends from other countries, we Americans have absolutely no idea how we're viewed by other countries most of the time. Just as we were mostly clueless about the world-wide disappointment that followed our "electing" Bush twice, I think we don't see what the rest of the world sees in our election of Obama either.
Still, the guy's got almost 7.5 more years to do some cool stuff ... they could have waited a few years.
(But then, you and I are obviously lying about what we're saying here, because we worship Obama and he can do no wrong in our eyes, according to the nutjobs out there.)
I agree. I think this was largely a referendum on the US and how pleased the world in general is to have an Obama-type in charge instead of a Bush-type. Obama is a big hit globally, I suspect, probably even moreso than domestically.
Did you see or hear about the Obama spoof on SNL last Saturday? Where Obama goes on and on about how little he's done? I thought it was right on (although not especially funny - a little).
He really simply hasn't done much good or bad thus far beyond setting a different tone, but then, setting a good tone can be a HUGE thing even if you haven't done anything, and I think that's how the world sees this.
I figure Obama is a shoe in for Time's Man of the Year, my question is: How will he fare in the Miss USA (or Miss Universe) competition??
And the exploding heads begin...
I'm not going to click on a link about giant condoms, so I haven't read the post but I will make two comments:
1) I'm totally not surprised that the bat-sh*t crazy nutjobs are talking about penises again. Paging Dr. Freud. (Or given their salivation over penises, perhaps Pavlov would be a more appropriate reference.) Could they possibly make their own well-deserved feelings of impotence and inadequacy more obvious? I believe the phrase is "sour grapes."
Or is their prurient obsession about other men's junk just their Pavlovian response to anything/everything? Probably 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
When the supposedly straight guys obsess about other guy's genitals more than the resident fag, people ought to start wondering, eh? Well, wondering while pointing and laughing too. LOL
2) Why would "giant" condoms be a bad thing? If someone accused a guy of wearing giant condoms, is that supposed to be upsetting? ;)
You're a funny guy, Alan...
Of course, sometimes folk make it easy...
Funny? I was being serious. ;)
It's the crazy being being sprayed around like a lawn sprinkler that's funny. I'm merely an observer. :)
I appreciate your even-handedness, Dan.
Now that this Nobel Peace Prize issue is out of the way, will William Shatner finally get an Oscar for his work in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier?
Ooh! Shat reference FTW!
Well played, sir. Well played.
"ftw?"
For The Win. :)
When Obama was elected, there were tears of joy in the homes of many, many Americans. But in almost every African American home the tears came in storms, and they came for days. In South America, the Caribbean, Africa, parts of south Asia, they were dancing and celebrating for hours.
Kenya, a nation of 38 million people declared the immediately following Thursday a national holiday.
When the President was inaugurated, most Americans were proud of a new sense of social change for the better in terms of how we accept people of skill, regardless of the background. Perhaps we took this change too far and thought we "no longer see color" (as if such a thing is internally possible).
When Judge Sonya Sotomayor was confirmed by Congress, spanish speaking New York wept, as did many spanish speaking communities across the nation.
And just this past Tuesday, before Friday's Nobel announcement, my wife, in Sao Paulo, Brasil, on business, was in a taxi and the driver said how moved he was by the American election and inauguration of President Obama. He said America had given Brasilians so much hope that one day they expected that Brasilian leadership would soon not always be limited to the whitest of the nation.
Apart from the way President Obama is conducting political business and political speech from the executive seat of the world's only superpower (pretty impressive feat to maintain ethical choices given the reality of the rabid forces of every opposition), the Nobel committee sought to recognize the phenomenon of deep, deep hope and inspiration that has filled the hearts and minds of perhaps a billion people on the planet.
You two ask what President Obama has done. What did Martin Luther King do? Mother Teresa? Albert Schweitzer? Is the continuing groundswell of new confidence and hope among hundreds of millions of people who experience and identify with the psychological and social oppression of color prejudice not to be recognized as worthy? Was the Russo-Japanese war so far more crucial in its time and consequence? Have Gore's efforts at environmental education far outstripped what Obama has taught a frenzied and polarized nation about respectful speech, about disclaiming even loved ones when they insist on taking polarizing stands? Does the environment count for more than modeling moral and ethical behavior. And did Gore not have thousands of scientists and staff helping. Did he face "friends" like Hillary and Bill Clinton on the campaign trail?
We may ask what he's done. And when we do, I suspect that white Americans are unconsciously revealing how hard it is for us to see what has been done and is still being done. We don't see it. The social hegemony of a superpower nation, partially relieved from our guild by the election of a black man, can't see it. No other nation is really any better, or even as good, as the United States about focusing on protecting space and opportunity for the marginalized.
And yet we still read on the color line, against our intention, perhaps, but inexorably our gut is trained before our moral choices. And it sounds off first, before we have much time to consider. We don't see it at first, and the award is an attempt to reflect to the world a principle much like the biblical principle that speaks to our, too often, bad faith:
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
If they give the award for happy feelings and hope, and it's in their power to do so, there are plenty of people who deserve the award.
I'm asking, on the issue of nuclear disarmament for example an issue the committee cited, what has concretely been accomplished? He says he's committed to disarmament, signing treaties, etc. All that's wonderful ... if he follows through. So again, concrete examples of accomplishments?
He's made plenty of promises: closing gitmo, supporting LGBT rights, getting health care passed, etc., etc., etc. All area great, and I hope he accomplishes them. But plenty of politicians make promises. At this point I don't see how he's much different.
"Happy feelings..." Yeah, it's nice to see black people dance.
__________
The Guardian, July 6, 2009:
"The US and Russia today agreed a nuclear disarmament road map that would see them cut their arsenals by up to a third, in a preliminary agreement signed by Barack Obama during his Russia trip.
Pledging to reverse a "sense of drift" in Washington's relations with Moscow, the US president said he hoped a new nuclear arms reduction treaty to replace the Start-1 pact, which expires this December, would be ready by the end of the year. "We must lead by example and that is what we are doing here today," he said in Moscow.
Under terms of the outline deal the sides have agreed to reduce their nuclear stockpiles to between 1,500-1,675 warheads each and that strategic delivery systems – ballistic missiles, submarine-launched missiles and heavy bombers – be cut to between 500 and 1,100."
Feodor, I don't know what's stuck in your craw, but it ain't sellin' here.
I have to admit being of two minds about this. I have no idea why the Nobel committee awarded Obama the prize other than for the reasons stated. Precisely because he is initiating a new era of American-led global diplomacy, avoiding the war-mongering and stupidity of the Bush era, I think it is well-deserved. On the other hand, other than refusing to see Vladimir Putin's soul, his ventures on to the world stage have been tentative - which, I suppose, goes in line with the first part of this comment, huh? - and his Hamlet-act in re Afghanistan is getting a bit tiresome.
Did he deserve it? The folks who decide these things apparently think so, and I am more than willing to take them at their word, rather than read non-existent tea leaves, or play the game of reading between the lines. Obama is, for all intents and purposes, not just the American President, but the most popular leader in the world. This kind of global good will hasn't existed for the United States in decades and should be celebrated.
Of course, the troglodytes on the right hate everything about him, and are quite willing to side with the Taliban against their own President, as Rush did on Friday.
Yet, I also think ushering in an era of global good feeling and hopey-changey stuff really doesn't mean all that much. While I don't know who the other serious candidates for the Prize were this year, I can imagine there being others who have more substantive accomplishments, such as the International Criminal Court for their work, or the leaders of Uganda for ending a decades-long insurgency, or a Chinese dissident or two.
So, I suppose I am pretty happy about this, and will refer to him as our Nobel Laureate President from now on. I don't think there's reason for the more reasonable amongst us to get huffy one way or another. I can understand why even supporters might be saying, "WTH?" about this. As far as I'm concerned, no harm, no foul on this one.
I'm not selling anything; I'm noting a sorrowful, though ageless deficit of paying due attention to the voices of people of color by the hegemony and taking it seriously when they speak from their perspective.
I do not think of this as our individual failings except that they are our inherited and internalized failings by virtue of being members of a particular group. Look up Niebuhr on social sin, Augustine before him.
But there is no doubt of our inability to measure the depth of meaning that this President represents - not just because he is darker skinned that Senator Boehner, but because how, having grown up as a black man in America, he has established preternatural equipoise in his leadership style and refuses to demonize; won an election when rivals of his own liberal party spoke from the gutter in South Carolina; dispatched a beloved minister who was filled with ego from his association, and did so with a balanced, nuanced, speech investigating race in America that has not been heard for decades; signed an executive order in his first thirty days to stop torture; set a time table to close Guantanamo; has; in his sixth month signed a disarmament agreement with Russia after eight years of regress; now is on the verge of following through with his commitment against "don't ask, don't tell"; getting something done on Health Care for the first time since LBJ...
and you guys are almost like the Republicans... who only see dancing, happy feelings, and no meaning.
No thank you; I'll make common cause with the taxi drivers of the world, those who live in favelas, those who stake their economic claim on a trash heap half the size of Staten Island just outside of Lagos, Nigeria.
Who among Americans can recognized the oppressed? It is not in our theology, apparently. Not in our moral DNA, spun out of the double helix of Manifest Destiny and chattel slavery. Gay men and women of color know where the divide lies. It is not in the interest of white privileged economic lives, consuming 43% of the world's resources for 8% of a middle class vision.
We dare not see it. We dare not weigh the words of dark folk. There is terror in the dusk. Justice awaits there and recompense for all that we have inherited, though we make video games out of it, though we deprecate ourselves on reality shows. In the many examples of a growing but unconscious rage and self-hate, we are aware what our forefathers have done, and how the decks are stacked.
But we dare not know it. We cannot concede. Wont we be crushed?
Swedes and Norwegians have passed us by, and black folks have been waiting for a thousand years.
On the desk of a school secretary in Flatbush, there is a framed portrait of the First Family. No one is asking you to have one, too. But perhaps, after this week, you could ask why so many in the United States and around the world are going to the same extent to surround themselves with portraits of the man, the family.
This is far from just "happy feelings." Far, very far; and we are far from understanding, as demonstrated even here, among the most well-meaning of liberal white sites.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's pretty cool that he won this. I GET awarding the US for moving away from Bush to Not Bush, in terms of foreign policy. I get that it's a big deal and Obama has put some action to his words.
I get that people all over the world are impressed by and paying attention to our new President and hoping (it is my opinion) that with this president, we will live up to our most noble ideals.
And, from the Nobel people's point of view, I get that he's a popular guy (globally if not nationally) and this sort of surprise can really get people talking and energized.
I get all of that.
I'm just saying - from Obama's point of view as much as anyone else's - it may well have been more prudent to wait to see what ACTIONS he puts in place to support these fine, fine US ideals of Justice and Hope and Responsibility which he has so successfully espoused.
I'm pretty proud that he's won this, I see it as a referendum on America's best ideals (moving away from torture, from nuclear belligerence, from wars of convenience and pre-emption, from massive military solutions to cooperative, law-based solutions, etc, etc) and the Nobel folk saying "Go, Obama, Go!"
Still, from Obama's point of view, he already has plenty of criticism directed his way for being all flash and words and few actions and policies. I'm just saying I think next year or another year beyond this one would have been more prudent and probably preferred by the Obama team.
One man's opinion.
Michael, over at the Levellers blog, has a thoughtful essay on this topic.
Feodor said...
and you guys are almost like the Republicans... who only see dancing, happy feelings, and no meaning.
I see nothing I've written or Alan or Geoffrey or Michael or others who may have questioned the wisdom of this prize to back up such a scandalously-phrased accusation. We see plenty of meaning, read what we've written.
We dare not see it. We dare not weigh the words of dark folk. There is terror in the dusk. Justice awaits there and recompense for all that we have inherited...
Feodor, your charges are unfounded and unsupported, brother. Sell this false racism elsewhere, there's too much work to be done for sniping between friends.
So the answer is, no, you don't have any actual concrete examples of the things he's done so far?
OK, that's fine. I'd think you'd be intellectually honest enough to simply admit that and move on,
Feodor, rather than attempting to evade that fact by calling names and stamping your foot and and playing the phony victim card while comparing us to Republicans because we have the nerve -- THE NERVE! -- to simply discuss this award and what it means.
Typical bullying. Boring and bullying, exactly what I've come to expect from you, which is why I never engage with you, and why I should know better than to try.
All yours now, feel free to continue your tantrum about nothing. I know it's what you live for.
Sad to say that I think Alan's latest comment is correct on the merits, Feodor. Rather than read what's written, you do exactly what Alan says you do. Furthermore, you seem to believe that we just don't have the wonderful glasses to see through the eyes of African-Americans the way you do.
Buddy, you couldn't be more wrong.
More than that, the questions asked are legitimate ones; your citing the celebration not just of African-Americans, but Africans and many other oppressed people just isn't the point. Rather than cite the actual reasons for the award noted by the Nobel Committee, you actually make it sound cheap - he got it because he's the first minority US President.
To claim that questioning the awarding of the prize means we just can't see through the eyes of the oppressed - whatever that means - is nonsensical. Like Dan, one can say "That's pretty cool," and still say, "Huh?" because, frankly, he really hasn't done a whole lot. If he decides to send all sorts of new troops to Afghanistan and warms up that war a bit, the Nobel committee might end up with egg on its face and blood on its hands (as will the President).
Blind support of any elected official is dangerous, regardless of the alleged virtues.
The Nobel committee: "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future."
___________
On Wednesday, Tom Joyner, the well known, successful long time radio DJ, along with other members of his family, will appear before the South Carolina appeals court in order to get his two great-uncles pardoned posthumously for a crime they did not commit but for which they were executed in 1915.
He and his family had not known that this had happened. His mother, a niece of the two executed uncles, had met his father after she fled South Carolina for Florida when a young girl. She did not speak of what she had fled. Ever.
Mr. Joyner had learned this history by participating in a genealogy show that Henry Louis Gates hosted on PBS.
The real criminal, it seems certain, was another black man who was envious of the brothers' commercial success. At the trial white folks even testified on the brothers' behalf, but the honor of the police and detectives, prosecution and judge and jury was too valuable to give in to anything like innocence.
Here is Mr. Joyner in his own words about his chances, which he thinks are very good:
"But there are no guarantees. We are talking about South Carolina, after all. And even though we’re talking about nearly 100 years ago when this atrocity was committed, I have to look at the whole picture. So much has changed, but so much is still the same. I find it eerie that the idea of exonerating my uncles unfolded as the country prepared to elect the country’s first black President. And that same president had to suck up the indignity of being called a lie before Congress by a congressman from South Carolina."
Deep in the heart of every black American is an enormous hole where their family history would be, if it were known. And eating at the margins of the hole, making it ever larger, is the constant anxiety of making a mistake in front of white people. Of being mediocre. Because being simply as good as others if one is black is never enough. That's the message written on young boys' and girls' hearts and they grow up with that pressure to be twice as good to get just as far and they meet that pressure in different ways.
Suketu Mehta, the New York based author of fiction and a work on the city of Bombay, talks about trying to find a rental apartment in Bombay in order to live for a year and work on his book. Real Estate for really nice apartments in Bombay is terrifically costly. His broker is on the phone with the landlord's broker and says:
"'But the party is American, holds an American passport and American visa; everything he has. His wife is British visa... What? Yes, his is originally Indian.' Then he speaks apologetically to me. 'It is for foreigners only.' AS another broker explains it, 'Indians won't rent to Indians. It would be different if you were one hundred percent white-skinned.' At least this is one sign that my passport changes nothing. I am one of the great brown thieving horde, no matter how far I go. In Varanasi I was refused admittance to the backpackers' inns on similar grounds: I am Indian. I might rape the white women."
Earlier he had detailed his welcome to a Catholic school in Queens after his family had moved to New York: "Soon after I got there, a boy with curly red hair and freckles came up to my lunch table and announced, 'Lincoln should have never freed the slaves.'"
____________
Every black family I've known over the last twenty years of my life has stories of terror, violence, police threats, casual hate.
Every one.
____________
You guys have a lot to say about me (and I don't recall offering myself as an example of anything), some ventilating about Obama - Alan blows right by disarmament agreements (for which he asked) in order to pitch his usual misdirecting apoplexy based on none of the matters at hand.
But none of you have a word for the taxi driver, the school secretary.
Or, more importantly, an ear.
Nothing.
Would all the Tom Joyners and Suketu Mehtas and the Tates and Williams and Davis's, Dolberrys and Mayfields, Ross's and White's ever catch your ears and break down the hegemonic defenses which the three of you - among the best the white world has to offer, morally speaking - so readily, fastidiously, and blindly raise?
Time will tell.
Go ahead, revel in your boredom and your offense. It is the protecting shell of anomie that we Americans have with every discussion of race, and which covers the guilty implications of a specific belonging that the anomie signals.
As for facts and accomplishments, you guys are dealing in some enormous double standards (in which wouldn't take a whole lot of rhetoric to see racial bias):
Tell me, again, what Albert Gore has accomplished besides a book, a video, and a whole lot of good will and intention?
Talk about happy feelings.
But then, Mr. Gore isn't black. So he is deserving as is.
Lost me, F. You haven't said anything about what I've said.
If you have a problem with me, let me know. If you have a problem with someone else, let them know.
But cite what the actual offense is, not your psychic "I know all about you and your hypocrisies" BS. You're sounding like Mark, et al, when you start majoring in false, unsupported charges.
No, no, I think it's time for you to do your own spade work, Dan.
If you can't engage with quotes, other writers, anecdotal snippets on a blog, and the poltical evidence Alan asked for and then ignores, then I think it's fair to say you've given up.
Remember Roger Wilkins, Dan, as you go.
Then suffice to say, Feodor, that I won't abide by personal and unfounded attacks upon any of my commenters any more from someone on "my side" than I will from our more conservative brethren.
If you have something to say about what someone has said, I am always glad to hear from you, even if you disagree. If you want to make unfounded personal attacks, go elsewhere.
And to clarify, when you say:
If you can't engage with quotes, other writers, anecdotal snippets on a blog, and the poltical evidence Alan asked for and then ignores, then I think it's fair to say you've given up.
It means absolutely nothing to me. I "engage" with other quotes, writers, anecdotes and political evidence all the time. What of it?
That comment means nothing. Talk to me about something solid and I love it. If you want merely to fart, do that somewhere else.
Tom Joyner
Suketu Mehta
Brasilian taxi driver
School secretary
Roger Wilkins
Disarmament
Executive orders to end torture; close Guntanamo
Electoral politics
Kenyan national holiday
African-American families
Caribbean-American families
... take your pick; I believe I've mentioned them.
Or, we can dig down a bit on the implications of the deprecatory phrase, "happy feelings" in light of what the Nobel committee is trying to communicate to the world and whether there is a constitutional habit for white Americans to downplay the deep existential hopes of others: or, rather, not to downplay but to simply have no empathic receptors whatsoever.
When Americans "feel" surprise at the honor, I worry that we have not gotten hold of the import at hand for just these reasons: we have socially learned prejudices which continue to be alive despite intentions. A will to root out these things comes much with more difficulty and pain than even liberals often choose - unless there is a good deal of self interest (see Derrick Bell's Silent Covevants).
So now you can add Derrick Bell to the list.
Or do I not have enough "solid" folks there? Andwhat would they look like, exactly?
Feodor, perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't know what in the hell you are talking about. Not the slightest idea.
My comment here was that I think it would be more appropriate until Obama has had some policies implemented towards making the world a more peaceful place to receive an award like this. You disagree?
And does that go for Al Gore's book and video Nobel?
Muhammad Yunus?
Mohamed ElBaradei?
Jimmy Carter?
Jody Williams?
Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin?
Aung San Suu Kyi?
The 14th Dalai Lama?
Name one whose policies have solved the evironmental crises, cured a nation, a conflict, brought lasting peace, solved the problem of land-mines.
If the standard is "some policies implemented towards making the world a more peaceful place", then how does stopping torture at Guantanamo, throttling down in Iraq, signing the first major disarmament agreement in over a decade between powerful nations so recently increasing an animosity that threatened the entire Western world... not qualify with the achievements of those above?
Are the angry conservatives right? Are we suffering from our unreal expectations being unmet by a "magic negro"?
But the primal question, the more important one, is why do we have these expectations? What is going on between us and President Obama?
Well, I'm not an expert on the Nobel Peace Prize, and I know that the criteria for winning can be vague, and I know that some questionable winners have been named in its history, but to answer your question, "What have they done..." on the ones I DO know about...
Jimmy Carter:
"for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development.
During his presidency (1977-1981), Carter's mediation was a vital contribution to the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, in itself a great enough achievement to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize. At a time when the cold war between East and West was still predominant, he placed renewed emphasis on the place of human rights in international politics.
Through his Carter Center, which celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2002, Carter has since his presidency undertaken very extensive and persevering conflict resolution on several continents. He has shown outstanding commitment to human rights, and has served as an observer at countless elections all over the world. He has worked hard on many fronts to fight tropical diseases and to bring about growth and progress in developing countries. Carter has thus been active in several of the problem areas that have figured prominently in the over one hundred years of Peace Prize history.
In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power, Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international co-operation based on international law, respect for human rights, and economic development."
Those are some specific actions and behaviors that Carter has implemented, taken part in.
The Dalai Lama:
"In the last two decades, His Holiness has set up educational, cultural and religious institutions which have made major contributions towards the preservation of the Tibetan identity and its rich heritage...
His Holiness continues to present new initiatives to resolve the Tibetan issues. At the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1987 he proposed a Five-Point Peace Plan as a first step towards resolving the future status of Tibet...
In Strasbourg, France, on June 15, 1988, he elaborated on this Five-Point Peace Plan and proposed the creation of a self-governing democratic Tibet...
During his travels abroad, His Holiness has spoken strongly for better understanding and respect among the different faiths of the world. Towards this end, His Holiness has made numerous appearances in interfaith services, imparting the message of universal responsibility, love, compassion and kindness."
(Information from the Nobel people)
Al Gore, whose prize I also question, at least won for doing something. He devoted years to his work on climate change education. He has poured forth much work and effort in doing so.
This is true for the Dalai Lama and for Jimmy Carter. They have specific actions and a body of work to which to refer.
This is what I'm talking about: Taking specific actions that specifically and actively contribute to peace in our world.
I dig Obama, I think the mere fact of his winning the presidency is impressive and a hopeful statement to the world. I think he has begun to implement some plans that WILL lead to a better world. Ending torture, ending the wars, cutting back on nuclear expansion, looking for diplomatic solutions rather than militaristic solutions, adopting a more grown up approach to foreign policies... these are ALL extremely positive steps that he has BEGUN to take.
His election itself was a powerful thing and I'm glad for it. I'm just saying that it would be better to have some actual body of work and a bit of history to refer to when awarding such a prize. For this reason, the Kissinger win, the Arafat win and others like them were inappropriate (well, that and how violent they actually were!).
But it's not treason to our african american brothers and sisters to suggest that waiting a while to allow some body of work to compile is appropriate. It IS ridiculous to suggest that those who might think so (based on knowing NOTHING about us) are somehow racist for merely questioning the wisdom of this award.
No one but you, Feodor has come out with the smiling happy negro shit and that shit remains on YOUR hands, not mine. I'll thank you not to shake my hand with such ugliness.
Are we suffering from our unreal expectations being unmet by a "magic negro"?
But the primal question, the more important one, is why do we have these expectations?
What expectations is that you think we have? I expect my leaders to do the right things or, at the least, to NOT do the wrong things. I expect our leaders to implement responsible policies.
I assume you don't have a problem with that. What that has to do with the topic at hand, I fail to see.
Rachel Maddow: The Nobel Prize & Obama Derangement Syndrome
Thanks for the link, Marty. Rachel Maddow makes some good points. Plus she has footage of her own of some exploding heads. I am proud of our president. I hope he continues to work toward peace.
Let me make clear, just in case I haven't been: My criticism is not of Obama - it's not really even criticism. It's just a note that, to me, waiting some time to see more of a body of work would have been more appropriate for the Nobel people.
I'm quite proud of the president and this award. I think it speaks extremely highly of Obama and how well he represents the best American ideals and how much the world longs for the US to live up to our best ideals.
Thanks for the link, Marty. Good stuff.
Ya'll are welcome!
I thought Maddow did a great job in articulating what needed to be said.
"Alan's dismissive, disparaging and race haunted, "happy feelings."
Gee. Is it any wonder I regret ever engaging with Feodor?
Leave me out of it.
Sorry, Alan. I had just got around to getting back here and saw that Feodor has continued his unsupported racism games. I have since deleted the comment.
Feodor, I have already told you: No more unsupported false and ugly charges like this about my commenters will be allowed. They will be deleted.
You see, as Alan has already noted, this is an arrogant and bullying tactic that I have seen mostly used by those on the Right (not by ANY means suggesting that most on the Right do this, just that I have mostly seen it coming from a few on the Right). It's not enough to disagree for these types, they must also demonize.
It's one thing to disagree with the notion that the Nobel people may have jumped the gun on this prize, some must also say, "Not only are you wrong in your view on this award, but you are racist for even having that view. If you weren't racist, you'd agree with me..." That's arrogant, ignorant and bullying.
It's one thing to disagree with someone on a particular interpretation of the Bible, but some must also say, "Not only are you wrong in your interpretation, clearly you don't respect or love the bible - otherwise you'd agree with me." That's arrogant, ignorant and bullying.
It's one thing to disagree on some behavior or action - gay marriage or nuking cities, for instance - but some must also say, "Not only are you wrong in your view on atonement, but you also must not be a Christian or you'd agree with me on this point..." That's arrogant, ignorant and bullying.
And on it goes. As I've said, it's a behavior I've noted mostly coming from a few on the Right (and especially the religious right), but Feodor demonstrates that those on the Left can do the same thing.
In either case, it's wrong and off-putting and harmful to your case.
Is it not noteworthy that there is no reasoned defense, but, in it's place, only anathemas and deletions?
And is it not curious how such levels of response imitate so much consistant and continuing history?
Who can say for sure whether we are even now exhibiting the bed rock reasons we, white liberals, are moved pre-rationally to delete the reasons - partially based on the witness of people of color around the world - for honoring a young black man in this way?
The claim of complete innocence is never believed, by the way, by anyone who knows their own color.
Is it not noteworthy that there is no reasoned defense, but, in it's place, only anathemas and deletions?
Defense of WHAT? You made an unsupported charge of racism. We called you on your unsupported charge, noting that it was an empty (and empty-headed) charge based on nothing substantial. I asked you if you had something substantial, by all means, bring it up. You did not.
You made false, unsupported and crazy accusations. What are people to do with such nuttiness?
Note it for the false charge it is and ignore it.
That is what I have done.
Feodor said:
And is it not curious how such levels of response imitate so much consistant and continuing history?
Once again, I don't have the slightest idea what you're speaking about.
If you actually want to have some sort of dialog, I'd suggest you explain what this is supposed to even mean. "Such levels of response"? what does that mean? That I deleted your false and unsupported charge of racism? No apology from me on that. I don't mind a bit of give and take, mainly when it's directed towards me. At my blog, though, I don't want such false nothingness foisted upon my commenters. If you wish to have a blog and tolerate that sort of behavior there, go ahead. I don't think allowing unsupported and false charges cast upon innocent bystanders at my blog and I don't think there is anything wrong with that.
"...imitate so much consistent and continuing history"? That means nothing to me. I have no idea what you're saying.
The claim of complete innocence is never believed, by the way, by anyone who knows their own color.
Again, I'm not at all clear what you are talking about here, but let me say that I agree with Wendell Berry who thinks that we all bear to some degree the scar of racism. I'm not saying that I have nothing whatsoever of racism in me. I'm saying that my thinking this award was premature is not racist.
A point which you have not disputed.
So, let the matter drop, F. If you have comments about the appropriateness of this award, by all means, make your comments. If you want to merely slander and spread manure, do that in your own home.
Feodor, your comments off topic are not wanted further.
If you have actual concerns about something that I have actually written that seems racist in some way to you (hard to imagine what, since race does not figure in to my post at all), then do this, write:
"Dan, when you say.... it is racist because...."
Otherwise, your comments are off topic and just plain stupid and offensive and I shall keep deleting such comments.
On topic comments are welcome.
Lest I'm not being clear, let me clarify: Feodor, YOU are not being clear. It is, doubtless, due to my own poor understanding so if you are actually concerned about racism, help me understand your position by saying:
"Dan, when you say ______, it is racist because _______"
And fill in the blanks.
Any other comments on the off-topic false charges of racism will be deleted.
Dan, it is when you dismiss the pervasive encouragement, re-motivation, and sense of a great and sudden seismic shift on the world's moral balance toward justice - and when Alan disparages it as "happy feelings - which Obama represents for half a billion people and more... and which the Nobel committee explicitly recognizes... that I find racist templates even in the hearts of us white American liberals are in play.
It's not hard to find. We all have it. Denial just continues ignorance of self.
Happy feelings, now?
And with that, I have now deleted more comments in one day from ONE so-called liberal commenter than I have deleted all other so-called conservative commenters combined since the beginning of blogdom.
Good Lord you do go on, don't you? Oh well, I like to poke blowhards with a stick as much as anyone...
"is, I suspect,"
You suspect wrong.
"Alan is my white brother"
No, I'm not.
As I have said several times now, I'm more than happy to ignore you and your posts and this is exactly why I do so, but I'm not going to let you or anyone else invent lies about me.
Again, in case you missed it the first time: Leave. Me. Out. Of. It.
I'm really not sure what's so difficult to understand about that. Heck, even the knuckledragging mouthbreathers that occasionally stop by these blogs can figure that out, so why are you unable to do so?
Because Dan's been asking, unable to get the gist the first few times.
Tell him to stop asking and I'll stop having to repeat myself.
Dan, it is when you dismiss the pervasive encouragement, re-motivation, and sense of a great and sudden seismic shift on the world's moral balance toward justice - and when Alan disparages it as "happy feelings - which Obama represents for half a billion people and more... and which the Nobel committee explicitly recognizes... that I find racist templates even in the hearts of us white American liberals are in play.
What have I done to dismiss the pervasive encouragement, etc? Question the wisdom of the Nobel committee on awarding someone the Peace prize?
Wouldn't that be a mere disagreement on the wisdom of the award (which is what it exactly was), not a referendum on my supposed racist views (which you are mysteriously reading into my question of the award)?
I reject that sort of "reasoning" when the Bubbas, Marshalls and Marks of the world attempt it and I reject it when you use it. You are not God enough to know my thoughts, brother Feodor and you are being presumptious to play that role.
Now, everyone, no more ridiculous comments off topic.
On topic, that's fine.
This comment has been removed by the author.
That's funny, Dan. You claim that I am playing God with your thoughts, when, in an absolutely concrete way, you have played God with my written ones.
You could not stand their existence so you erased them. The presumption must be that you could not defend against them, so you deleted them.
A God-like act for a blog.
I wrote things from my perspective. That does not make them true in the world, necessarily. So, that is quite unGod-like.
But even that you could not stand.
Your unconscious irony is splendid, and I hope that you're able to perceive it.
Then stick to the topic and we'll all get along just fine.
How does this make any sense, Feodor? I have asked you to quit making these off topic comments and you keep doing it. Why? Why would you be a rude person visiting someone else's blog? To what end?
Is this irony again, Dan?
We've been mutually rude for a couple of days now.
And as I did[n't] write just a minute ago, you've made deletion the topic - not me
Okay, so I asked the question and you answered. I'll give you one chance here to answer a follow up series of questions:
How have I been rude? By insisting that you post on topic? That you stop with false charges? Is that what you consider being rude?
And my asking you not to comment off topic or it will lead to deletion is not making "deletion" the topic. The topic is what it is. Your suggesting otherwise does not change that.
Also, as I asked earlier: To what end, Feodor? Why would you keep posting off topic when I've asked you to stop? Why be rude?
I don't think I'll take that chance, Dan, though I admit it takes an oddly glib kind of cheek to invite me to write after deleting me.
For which reason, I don't trust you to raise subjects and debate them strenuously. I don't trust you to respond to strong arguments, even rude seeming arguments made with reference to real experiences shared by real people and the statement of an august committee committed to peace, with strong arguments, even rude arguments in return.
All I read are quotes from wikipedia and the unsupported, unargued claim that unliked comments are "false." And then I see the act of cowards and those who don't fully comprehend what they are doing when they engage in setting up a blog open to the public. In my brief time in blogging, it was my policy to never delete. Anything. Words can stand and fall for themselves. And they can be taken on, when one has the capacity.
So, I don't think I'll take that "extra chance" to repeat myself. What remains of what I've written is enough to answer. You need not change your mind, but it was your choice not to ponder and respond to the witnesses mentioned, the phenomenon that is represented by Obama.
Hard dialogue is the gift of only some, the fruits of which are usually hard won reflections and true progress.
Through these woods seems more like a fool's errand of a temperate practicing kind of coffee klatch, Louisville style.
A mint julep, rather than a real drink.
Brother Feodor, I don't know if it's that you're that far advanced beyond me or if your writings are deliberately obtuse or what, but I don't understand much of what you write much of the time.
Your response here is another several paragraphs with little discernible meaning to me, beyond the reality that you haven't answered any of my questions and don't plan to.
That, I understand.
This kind of petered out, but I want to say one last time, with Dan and Alan and yes, you, Feodor - I think it is awesome Barack Obama has been granted the Nobel Peace Prize. I accept the citation given by the Nobel Committee.
All the stuff about justice and dancing in the streets - we all get that many people all over the world see President Obama as a symbol of America moving forward. He wasn't granted the award for that. He was granted the award for specific acts cited in the announcement by the Nobel committee, to which I have previously deferred.
It is not racist to simultaneously say, "Yea!" and, "Huh?" for the reasons given by both Alan and Dan. It is insulting to even suggest that this dual reaction, explained pretty clearly, is rooted not in honest and clearly stated reasons, but in the hideous American disease of racism. I believe that we are all (a) aware of how that disease has infected and affected us; and (b) work strenuously to minimize the damage it will do to ourselves and others. Your inference, or outright claim, that Dan and Alan are nothing but a couple of bigots in denial because they have the temerity to ask uncomfortable and honest questions about this award is yet another instance of your record of guessing wrong about the motivations of others.
I say this with regret, as I said some things previously that may have been overly harsh with regret. I like you, Feodor. I am challenged by you, and that's always a good thing. We agree on most things, in general, although in particulars we may have some differences. So, having said that, I will presume upon Dan's hospitality to add something more.
You need to lighten up a bit. Take others seriously. Accept what they say as offered in honesty, without any other agenda or hidden motive. We can disagree, and even be disagreeable, but your unsubstantiated and unsupportable accusation of racism - and they are frequent - simply stop any conversation in its tracks. Speaking only for myself, I can honestly say that I continue to wrestle with this particular dark angel of our American history, but I am also quite comfortable with my own familiarity with seeing the world, in particular our blessed and cursed land, from the perspective of our black brothers and sisters.
Adding, to be blunt, I do not need your, or any other's, affirmation or denial of that part of my life. I also do not need to prove to you, or to anyone else, that this wrestling continues apace, and with more success than failure over the years. Those to whom I have had to answer in the past have affirmed me in this, and these life-teachers are most beloved by me. In other words, insults from someone I have never met mean far less than the affirmation of men and women who have challenged me, loved me, affirmed me, and embraced me.
GKS, it is not so much an accusation, as it is part of a diagnosis of white identity.
And here I am taking off from some recent comments by the Pulitzer Prize winning historian Roger Wilkins to the effect that unless someone had super-extraordinary parenting, every white person has a template of racism within them.
I have said this now three or four times. But you guys continue to read juridically rather than diagnostically. My finding is that white guilt finds it can make a better defense in courtroom where innocence is presumed -- just as you presume it here -- than in the clinic, where disease is assumed, and its cure is assumed as well.
But you guys aren't interested in cure. You want a summary judgment to throw the case out.
Sorry, can't do that. I've learned too much from those that know.
''We are a country of strangers, and we are having a great deal of difficulty with our differences, because ultimately, we lack the ability to look at specific human beings.''
www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/16/reviews
/971116.16appiaht.html
"Race and racism are at the core of American culture: the economy, the social life, and about everything else we can think of has some relationship to race. There is no getting around race in this country, a country whose economic origins were built on African slavery. I don't believe white people can say they are not racist, when they benefit, knowingly or unknowingly, everyday from a racist society. We have to challenge that racism and we have to remember that racism is internalized deep in our souls and reflected in everyone's life."
I will be blunt. You, Feodor, are not the arbiter of racial sensitivity for those whom you do not know. Indeed, I find your assumption that you can be not only condescending and patronizing, but also quite tiresome as well.
Since there is absolutely nothing in this original post, let alone in this long comment-thread, to support any accusation of racial bias against the President, I fail to see why you have gone on and on, beyond the desire to appear either pedantic, superior, or both.
It may surprise you to learn that I do not "assume innocence" so much as grant a certain legitimacy and honesty to the words of others, without believing for one moment that I have the ability to read between them and discern the feelings in their hearts. Especially for those who views I have come to respect, and whose integrity has been demonstrated many times over, I presume that they are saying only what they are saying and nothing more.
GKS: "You, Feodor, are not the arbiter of racial sensitivity..."
Precisely why I provide personal stories about people I know who are in a much better position to begin the discussion of how black men are perceived by white Americans - namely, black men and black women; personal comments from people of color who live in other countries (just days before the Nobel prized was announced) and which which directly support the Nobel committee's comment about honoring the deep sense of change people of color feel because of Obama's accomplishments - which you now deny they made; considered reflections from prize-winning historians; evidence of disarmament which Alan asked for but then does not acknowledge.
When you guys choose not to respond to any of this, and, further, when you do respond in willfully blind ways (like when Alan disparages Obama's impact with the words "happy feelings" and now you, even worse, deny that the Nobel was not honoring the great influence Obama's actions and words have had on half a billion or more people around the world - "He wasn't granted the award for that" ["that" being what you call "dancing in the streets"] but, in fact, being new, profound determination among Brasilians, Kenyans, Germans, black women and men in Flatbush, Harlem, etc.) that just adds significant evidence that Roger Wilkins is right, that I am right to be reminded of his words.
In the face of the evidence in this thread alone, and now particularly your defense with its own mis-directional disparagements of me - which is fine, but you've chosen not to face the words and testimony of others (and why? are they too black for you to deal with?) - it is clear that one need not personally be an arbiter on race sensitivity to see consciously unintentional, but deeply subconscious duplicity to use words like, "condescending" and "patronizing" when you ignore those words and testimony brought to you from the world of people who do not look like you.
And I do indeed grant people's comments to have legitimacy and honesty. More than you. Because you elude what they say, when they say more than intended. Alan, as I've said again and again and again, says what is lies in almost every white heart. And now you GKS, have said what is said by every pricked conscience of a white heart when that heart does not want to be aware.
So now, I have reminded you of evidence that has nothing to do with me but is from many people of color, domestically as well as intenationally. I have reminded you of what honored historians have said. I have reminded you of what the Nobel Committee has said - which you have just glossed over in denial. And I have reminded you not for the first time, even in this thread.
And now, I have pointed out how you repeat Alan's moral leakage by discounting "dancing in the streets" and by disparaging the experience of people for whom it is so much more - but all you see is their bodies moving... and not their minds and hearts.
All that's left is for Dan to say I am the one being rude and crude and accusatory; despite your last, despite your choice to accuse the messenger, and your refusal to consider what I have written that disproves the very first two comments in this thread, which reveal motivations and shallow considerations consistently supported and repeated by Alan, Dan, and now yourself.
Racist templates lie in the hearts of every white person raised in America.
And yours have now joined the parade, "dancing in the streets" with the rest of us.
We choose not to respond not, as you seem to believe, because we secretly have a sheet and hood hidden in our closets. We choose not to respond because of the racially-tinged over-reaction you seem to be having because Dan and Alan had the temerity to believe that Pres. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize was unwarranted on the merits! There is a good argument to be made that way, Dan and Alan have both made it, neither one without any hint of racial bias.
We choose not to respond because being hectored, badgered and lectured to about our apparent lack of clarity on racial matters is insulting, to say the least, irrelevant as Dan has said, and really has nothing to do with anything written or said, here or anywhere else by any three of us.
I defy you to find anything I have ever written that hints at racial insensitivity. I defy you to find anything I have ever written about Pres. Obama that even suggests I do not admire all he has accomplished, even as I desire him to do so much more with the gifts he has ably demonstrated.
Finally, and here as in all cases I can only speak for myself, since you have no idea of my life experiences beyond what I have presented, and some general statements in an earlier comment here, I really do wish you would please stop. Quite frankly, it isn't annoying because you are hitting close to some mark. It is annoying because of your arrogant presumption, your overstated belief that you actually have something to say to me, at 44 years of age, that I have not heard before, let alone absorbed in all sorts of ways in to my life.
I owe you no more explanation, I owe you no defense of any kind. With your broad generalizations based on little more than a certain questioning as to the wisdom of awarding the President this Prize at this time, neither have Dan nor Alan. Since you have presumed to do no more than indict us (and why me I do not know, because I happen to think the prize is merited and celebrate it whole-heartedly) without any actual reference, except to a couple sentences of Alan's ripped wholly out of context, I am guessing that this is my last comment on this point, precisely because, as with Marshall Art, Bubba, and others, I tire easily of repeating myself; since it is quite clear you just don't want to hear this, and since you have demonstrated numerable times in the past a tremendously fallible ability to guess on the motivations and life-histories of others (especially me), I will allow you to continue alone, if you wish, but at this point, as far as I'm concerned, this issue is as dead as Jacob Marley.
That you think I have in mind the KKK, GKS reveals how little nuance you carry when regarding these conversations.
Racism is a multi-variable and of many different degrees.
But it is, unfortunately, a hallmark for all of us, particularly when it is prejudice. Prejudice, GKS. Perhaps you could investigate the structures of that word and find the denotative intent: pre-rational. This is kind of racism I have been talking about when I talk about the most well-meaning of liberal white people.
Racism of the virulent, white hatred of the Other, kind is not pre-judicial. It is active and a conscious choice, and unmitigated, morally, by the necessary markings of social identity on human nature.
In other words, your culpability for your racist templates is mitigated by the fact that is almost entirely unavoidable by virtue of your social development as a white boy in America. Your Ur-patriarchal identity is of analogously similar origin.
But I'm willing to bet that if we were talking about our inherent patriarchal selves, you'd rush to a luxury of confession, white liberal that you are. And never confuse your limitedness as a man with outright misogyny.
That's because you are not threatened, deeply, as a man. Jacob Marley would have nothing to say to you on that regard.
It's not the same story with your whiteness.
www.tolerance.org/blog/acknowledging-bigotry-within
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