I questioned the prize committee’s definition of the word “peace” when Al Gore won it for environmental activism, which seemed a wee bit of a stretch for me. This time around, the committee at least seems to be thinking in the general direction of “peace”:
The committee praised Obama for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” during his nine months in office and singled out for special recognition Obama’s call for a world free of nuclear weapons, which he first made in an April speech in Prague.
Heralding Obama as a transformative figure in U.S. and international diplomacy, the committee said: “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. 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.”
So. This will, no doubt, make conservatives flip the fuck out. Maybe it’ll move his poll numbers among the rest of the population. (Maybe the Nobel committee just wants us to get some decent health care?) But what reaction do I, an American progressive/hippie pinko commie type have to the bestowing of the Peace Prize on the president whom I spent the better part of a year volunteering to get elected?
The snark is flowing fast on Twitter. Melissa Harris-Lacewell: Because he appointed all his electoral adversaries to the cabinet. #ReasonsBHOwonNPPandBecause he invited a white policeman over for a beer! #ReasonsBHOwonNPP #BlackMenDontDoThat.
But really, it does seem a little…early? I mean, the man’s been president for nine months. The extraordinary goodwill that he’s generated around the world? Mostly a result of him so very obviously NOT being George W. Bush. I mean, yes, he’s done some things that are impressive. He’s given speeches in Muslim countries calling for understanding, he’s called for a world without nuclear weapons, he’s not behind the coup in Honduras and has actually taken some steps to return the rightful president, etc. He wants to get out of Iraq, though it appears to be going far slower than we’d have hoped.
Let’s be clear: we didn’t elect Dennis Kucinich. Shit, we KNEW we weren’t electing Dennis Kucinich. But I think a lot of us were hoping for more than we’ve gotten. Pushing for the Patriot Act renewal and more funding for war in Afghanistan harder than he seems to be pushing for a public option on health care is only the latest set of disappointments.
I wonder what’s left to give him if he DOES accomplish something major? If he manages to broker peace between Israel and Palestine? Hell, if he actually ends the two wars he inherited? Our own Matt Duss joked: Obama will receive prize on Dec 10. Has until then to end Isr-Pal conflict, get Iran to abandon nukes, end Iraq/Afgh wars. No pressure. (I guess they could always give a prize to Hillary Clinton for all that, and once and for all cause Bill’s head to explode: Carter, Gore, Obama and HIS WIFE?)
Others pointed out the massive peaceful protests in Iran this year and how that deserves more of a peace prize than Obama. Mousavi’s history with prior Iranian regimes probably discounted him (fairly, I think) but what about acknowledging the people who crowded the streets protesting for change? What about the people in Honduras calling for the return of their president under repressive conditions?
The Nobel Prize and other things like it celebrate individual achievement, but working for peace isn’t an individual thing. It requires collective action. It requires solidarity, communication, interaction. It’s not like writing a great book (or a great oeuvre). In a way, giving the peace prize to a sitting president while peace protesters are arrested in this country demeans the massive, not-officially-sanctioned peace movement that marched against wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet a lot of those people worked to put Obama in office as the best way to stop American warmongering, so perhaps blogger Cyn3matic was right when she said: Nobel Peace Prize=GIANT repudiation of W and the misbegotten Bush-Cheney years. This is the world saying, ‘08 voters, we AGREE. She noted that she felt vindicated in her anti-war marching years ago by this vote, and so perhaps in some way this is an acknowledgment of all the American people.
But turning it down would be a slap in the face to an international community that is showing, in the most generous way possible, that it wants the U.S. back as a leading component of the global order. The issue is not Barack Obama. It’s what the president represents internationally: a symbol of an America that is willing, once again, to drive the international system forward, together, toward the humane positive-sum goals of peace and disarmament. The fact that Obama hasn’t gotten the planet there misses the point entirely. It’s that he’s beginning, slowly, to take the world again down the path.
So while I see what Obama’s done so far as a step in the right direction on some issues, perhaps, but mostly just shifting us back to where we were under Clinton (a place that I was not at all happy to be, so we’re clear), I guess the rest of the world thinks something bigger is changing here.
I read this article this morning in the Mail & Guardian about Vladimir Putin and it made me giggle. At first, I thought that it was just worth a drive-by snarking on Twitter, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I should go back and write about it.
At first, of course, you get the usual masculinity-fetish. The title of the article is “That Shrinking Feeling,” which is just too obvious. Further down, a sentence reads, “Not that Putin is a spent force.”
Sexual metaphors and obsession with Putin’s bare chest are hardly rare–comic artist Becky Cloonan has a wholerange of Putin-fantasywebcomics that are totally hilarious. I admit to a bit of a Putin obsession myself–he’s such a caricature.
As was Bush, of course. A caricature of a certain type of American masculinity (just like Reagan before him) the same way Putin is a caricature of a certain type of Russian masculinity. He has judo videos! He shoots tigers! He’s so BUFF!
Only a few months ago, we were scared of Putin “rearing his head,” (oh, Palin, will you ever get old?) but now we hear little to nothing about him. And this article, masculinity fetish aside, makes a decent point about why, even if it buries it beneath layers of alternately fawning and poking at him.
Analysts add that United States President Barack Obama’s emollient approach on Nato enlargement and missile defence is not helping.
As Russian president, Putin was a natural when it came to attacking former president George Bush, for example over Iraq.
But fast-forward one year and he looked far less comfortable, barely speaking above a whisper, as he made a conciliatory speech praising the new Iraqi order in front of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki at a recent Moscow meeting.
As the public questions whether everything is really the United States’ fault, a change of tone is needed that Putin may struggle with, says political commentator Arkady Dubnov of the newspaper Vremya Novostei.
(OK, they did say “enlargement.”)
Does Obama’s conciliatory approach to foreign policy make the former bluff and bluster between Bush and Putin look…well…juvenile? Does Obama’s refusal to give leaders like Putin (and Chavez, and and and) a target effectively work where threats and yes, swagger didn’t?
Of course it’s far too early to tell. But during the campaign, especially the primaries, I wrote about Obama’s demeanor and tone about foreign policy contrasted with his rivals, and how Hillary Clinton and Obama seemed to have switched gender stereotypes.
I’m disappointed with many of Obama’s moves so far, but I wonder if just the tonal shift in public diplomacy is having an effect worldwide. It’s definitely not calming the Right inside the U.S., but they sure do look silly. So there’s that.
We’ve spent so long arguing that government doesn’t have to be the enemy, but the fact is that we’re used to government being the enemy. We’re used to disavowing the actions of our president loudly, to practically shouting “Not in our name,” to writing screeds of why we’re disappointed that this is our country.
No wonder we have a hard time believing that someone could get things right.
I was reading The Nation over breakfast this morning and came across this piece (which is excellent and should be read in its entirety) by Jonathan Schell.
Schell writes:
Yet in addition to being interconnected, the crises have striking features in common, suggesting shared roots. To begin with, all are self-created. They arise from pathologies of our own activity, or perhaps hyperactivity. The Greek tragedians understood well those disasters whose seeds lie above all in one’s own actions. No storm or asteroid or external enemy is the cause. Today, the economic crash is the result of investment run amok: the “masters of the universe” are the authors of their own (and everyone’s) downfall. The nuclear weapons that threaten to return in wrath to American cities were born in New Mexico. The oil is running short because we are driving too many cars to too many shopping malls. The global ecosphere is heading toward collapse because of the success, not the failure (until recently), of the modern economy. The invasion of Iraq was the American empire’s self-inflicted wound–a disaster of choice, so to speak. All we had to do to escape it was not to do it. Here and elsewhere, the work of our own hands rises up to strike us.
I was trying to find a quote this morning in which someone complained of Obama’s call for a new age of responsibility and said that it wasn’t their fault and they didn’t want to take responsibility.
And I think about the liberal blogosphere and how much of it has been defined, as I wrote before, by disavowing the actions of our government. Like leaving the Kerry 2004 sticker on your car after the last election, it seems like a big “don’t blame me” gesture, an argument like the one I made each time I left the country in the Bush years.
“I didn’t vote for him! I couldn’t help it!”
Now that the guy we (most of us) voted for IS in office, we feel like his call for responsibility is roping us back into being a part of Bush’s America. But responsibility isn’t just that.
Obama is in office because millions of people gave money, and thousands upon thousands of people took it upon themselves to volunteer for the campaign. Here in Philly there was a controversy because the Obama campaign didn’t want to pay “street money” to the folks who worked on election day, but they didn’t need to; volunteers were everywhere.
We took responsibility. We didn’t say “It wasn’t my fault, why should I have to work to fix it?”
Obama’s presidency isn’t a fun party where we punish the people who screwed up, because we all are complicit in the screwups. Like acknowledging and dealing with any other form of privilege, whether it be racial, gendered, heterosexual, cisgender, Western, middle-class, or educational, it’s not about feeling guilty. It’s about looking forward and doing something to change it.
No, it’s not my fault that Bush was elected. But I’m not going to let it be my fault that Obama doesn’t get to do all he can do.
Obama is redefining responsibility with that inaugural speech and its follow-up actions, just like he’s redefining the center. He’s taken the word away from conservatives who use it to gut welfare spending, and made it part of our vocabulary by coupling it with his famous quote from his keynote speech back in 2004, when his election to the Senate was a lone bright spot in a horrible election cycle, where Democrats were crouching defensively, letting the Right define the argument.
“It’s that fundamental belief — I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper — that makes this country work.”
That’s responsibility. It’s not covering your own ass and then crying out to punish the other guy. It’s looking at your own involvement and seeing what else you can do.
It shows Obama once again willing to be nonpartisan and appoint Republicans to his cabinet, giving him the moral high ground against obstructionists.
It takes another Republican out of the Senate, and though he’s one who could probably be pulled into a Democratic majority on some bills, having a Democrat appointed by New Hampshire’s Democratic governor would be the magic 60–if they ever get around to seating Al Franken.
And Gregg should jump at it, since New Hampshire’s trending Democratic and he’s unlikely to be reelected. Plus, he’s actually, y’know, qualified for the job.
My only question is: How quickly can we make this happen?
So on the “What Now” subject: The economic stimulus bill is up before Congress this week and it’s going to have a rough time in the Senate. The House has the votes along party lines, but the Senate, well, you know the score.
If you’re like me and you live in a state with a rational Republican senator, email/call/picket his or her office (I’m thinking Specter–my Senator–the two from Maine, Voinovich…you know what I mean.) Harass the hell out of ‘em. Flood their offices. We need this passed and we need it now.
I’d prefer if we could get this back in, but Obama had to at least look like he was willing to compromise. If the Republicans keep stonewalling, we need to remind ‘em who won this election.
We all do a lot of talking and writing, some of it can certainly go in the direction of elected officials. If one of those people isn’t your Senator, fake some sort of a connection and go for it. State you were born in? State where your grandma lives? State you slept in once on an all-night booty call? Whatever.
You may have already read these as they came in, but I’m organizing them here in order, partly for me, and partly for anyone who doesn’t read my Twitter feed but wants to see how my inauguration trip went.
I’ll write more when I get back, but some stories simply must be shared.
Today (Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day) I volunteered at the Day of Service event in D.C. at RFK Stadium. We coordinated about 13,000 people making care packages for the soldiers serving overseas. Included in those 13,000 were Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Hilda Solis, and Freddy.
Freddy is from Savannah. Actually, he was born in Jasper County, South Carolina, which is between Savannah, GA and Hilton Head, which regular readers know is where my family lives, and where I lived for a while.
Freddy grew up there when it was still segregated, and he couldn’t go to the beach in Savannah because it was whites only. He went to the beach on Hilton Head because there was no one else there to care who swam there.
Now, 50 years later, rich people from around the world swim and play golf there. My parents live and work there. I went to high school there.
The last time Freddy was in D.C.was 40 years ago, to hear Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr give his “I Have A Dream” speech. He was living in New York, and took the bus down.
Now Freddy lives in Atlanta, and came up to see Barack Obama get sworn in.
It was an absolute honor to work with him today, to hear his story and be a part of it.
(Pictures soon)
This morning, I’m getting up and heading down to Maryland to stay with some friends before the inauguration on Tuesday.
I’m recovering from a cold, so I sat home yesterday watching the whistle stop tour on TV. I didn’t go down to catch Barack here in Philly, but I watched him since.
I love the symbolism of the train tour. As matttbastard said, it’s like they’re symbolically doing away with the last 40 years. Plus, trains are cool.
The Obama campaign always understood the importance of symbolism, of performance. Yes, the president has lots of serious things to do, but one of his most important jobs is to stand for us, to represent us, and to reach out to us.
I love Michelle Obama, and Dr. Jill Biden.
And I love listening to Barack. I know he’ll screw up over the next four (eight?) years, but I hope he never screws up to the point where I get sick of hearing his voice. I hope I never forget how I feel now, how I’ve felt over the past couple of months knowing that we did it, we put the Bush era behind us, and how I’ve felt over the past year working for a candidate that, though he pissed me off at times, I actually trusted to do the right thing.
I’ll be in DC today, Monday and Tuesday, and will be twittering away, so feel free to follow along.
“You proved once more that people who love this country can change it.”
Well, Barack, I started trying to change this country long before I felt any love for it. And I’m finally starting to have a bit of faith in it.
My piece on Obama’s foreign policy team and why I’ve come around to it is up over at GlobalComment.
For a while, people scoffed at Barack Obama’s run for the presidency, writing him off as a naïve idealist who could never make it halfway through the primaries, let alone into the Oval Office. His rival Hillary Clinton criticized his foreign policy suggestions as simplistic and even dangerous.
Yet over and over again, Obama has overcome obstacles with what seems to be an inner talent for realpolitik that could impress even the likes of Bismarck. Unlike Bismarck though, Obama seems determined to shape the future of the U.S. not through war, but through diplomacy.
So his foreign policy team at first seems to be an odd bunch for Obama to choose to enact his plans. His former rival, the one who chided him on the trail for being inexperienced and naïve, and perhaps lost her bid for the presidency because of her hawkishness on Iraq, is now his Secretary of State. He’s retaining the Defense Secretary of the current administration, the one he so often harshly criticized at rallies. And his national security adviser is a retired general who has worked for both parties.
At first, peaceniks like me had our hackles raised by these choices.
We’d campaigned against Hillary Clinton primarily because of her foreign policy differences with Obama, and as Yglesias noted, there were indeed substantive differences. And keeping Bush’s defense secretary? We’d rather have Sarah Palin in charge of energy policy.
