On The Obama Peace Prize

...we have been living here for a while but this seems like the final stroke. obama for nobel peace prize? what? i thought this was a joke. again, the joke is on us (or something like that). 

last night wondering where all the socks go after they've been in the laundry...me & d joked that that the sock monster takes them and off they go to a parallel sock universe...one that couldn't possibly exist because it was just too silly, too impossible, too ridiculous. welcome to the sock universe.

thank you billy...your words always help me to understand things when they've gone so far off course. only poetry can offer some minimal kind of comprehension...

xox

Rev, I've always dug your sermons about the complete lack of a peace movement in our country.  The lack of any real figurehead or struggle to radically demand peace. 

Yes, we gather in large-ish peaceful protests to politely ask our government to possibly consider the possibility of maybe kind of thinking about sort of addressing peace as an abstract theory that may offer some small inkling of an alternative pathway for our country's direction. 

We are, of course, laughed at and ignored.  It is depressing.



I think this new movement is not the kind of peace movement you have been envisioning.



Peace,
G

Given the space beyond 140 characters, I want to expand on Tweets. I found it odd, to say the least, that Obama was given the high honor of a Nobel Peace Prize. My first thought was that it felt more like a swooning love-note for a middle school crush than an acknowledgment of one's life-work for peace. 

Some have said this award was more of a statement against G.W. Bush rather than a statement for Obama's actual accomplishments. Maybe, but I find that defeats the purpose of the prize; I think that's what you're getting at here.  

On Twitter, you wrote: "Stranger than ever. On John Lennon's birthday the leader of two wars receives the Nobel Peace Prize." To which I replied: "@revbillytalen I get it, but it also seems remarkably unfair to blame Obama for these wars. There's no easy way out. What do you suggest?"

While it's certainly accurate that he's the leader of two wars, I still hold out hope that he will move away from them. Perhaps I'm naive to still believe that. To end two wars is not the equivalent of making peace for we leave great destruction in both Afghanistan and Iraq. So the complex question is not just how do we end the wars but how do we make peace in these places of war. 

I do not have the answer, but anyone who can move us toward that answer would be in a much better position to rightly earn a peace prize.

 I'm still pondering this conversation and wish I'd sat on things a bit before posting above rather than unconsciously repeating narratives crafted by other thinkers. While I normally eschew cable news programs altogether, this clip from Rachel Maddow is circulating wildly today and offers some history on somewhat premature peace prize honorees of the past: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMJuEOaF84o. (I'm not saying Archbishop Tutu and President Obama are in remotely similar positions, only that this clip is circulating on social media among folks who are asking questions like the ones you've posed.)

Apart from whether or not Obama should have been awarded the prize, the very real question remains: how do we make peace in places of war? I like Wendell Berry's use of The War as he writes of the many wars that occur in our world at various times. It is that old War flaring up again rather than a new war in a new time. In my life, today, how can I be a peace-maker and not a war-maker? 

 I hold my two fingers up and say "War, man!"   All we are saying is give war a chance!  I am joining the War Corps Volunteers and traveling down to South America.  I heard a nun on a guitar singing "Let There Be War on Earth!"  

REMEMBER

It is worse for a peacemaker to win a war prize,  than a warmonger to win a peace prize.

BUT

If I were a peacemaker, I would have no war of mind; and, if I were a warmonger, I would have no peace of mind.  

Barrack went to scandanavia shameless appealing to the IOC for the games to be in chicago, even though all athletes know athletics and politics don't mix; really the IOC can make a choice with a president's appeal for chicago.
So the Nobel people not far off, and fear the lord praise the lord, hoped to by increasing the worship of Barrack, with the nobel peace prize, for him to realize he is worshiped, and so have the strength needed to make the right decisions in the future----but if course he stumped for Corzine, who bought his office, whereas Christie earned the office by putting near 200 local corrupt officials in jail, which if  you believe in free assembly and not local officials making community decisions, is attacking a near and dear problem.

Yes he leaves us wondering about the relationship of sports to war.  (Certainly the advertisements for armed forces recruiting makes war video games and places them on television between touchdowns and home-runs...)

Peace is a difficult model to pursue in 2009.  It doesn't have its Olympics.  Obama has an enormous industry that he feels responsbile for.  !,000 military bases are maintained outside the continental United States.  He has never publicly talked about what all those people would do.   How would we go from swords to plowshares.  Yes there is Afganistan and Iraq - then there is a whole tradition that colonializes the world.

Blessings and wildness!

Rev

Rev., You are much more hopeful/optimistic that I. You stated ... "And so they will be consumers of a war that is now being marketed as a product named Peace"

I think happened a long time ago, long before Obama was even a thought in our minds. The "leaders" of this nation have used the term peace as an excuse to invade, slaughter, interefere with the sovereignty of nations, for sheer profit and more for a very long time. But I do remember the CARB group (Cheney, AssCroft, Rice, Bush) mocking and laughing at Obama when he said he would talk to or negotiate with anyone and apparently the Peace Prize is his for saying just that. There was no requirement to actually follow through, just a few hollow words and the prize is given.

I do however still have hope that Obama will do more and do better that the non-human, inhuman, moron GWB. Are we not expecting far too much in just 8 Months? Too many have given up or are giving up in these very few months.

Hold on, Keep your eyes on the prize -- actual peace, not this fluff.

Billy - thanks for your posting on peace. I thought you might enjoy this article from today's WSJ - peace is bad for business! I added emphasis to a couple of the key phrases myself. The clear takeaway from this story is that international oil companies should not support peace efforts - conflict will produce better profits than a cease-fire where the government can function normally.

Nigeria's Uncertain Peace Dividend
By LIAM DENNING
Who will reap the peace dividend if the cease-fire in the Niger delta, now a week old, holds?

Surprisingly, it might not be international oil companies (IOCs) like Royal Dutch Shell that operate large fields in Nigeria. Restoring production shut-in by violence will take time and could be subject to further disruption in the run-up to 2011's general elections.

Of more concern is what peace in the delta region means for government reform of the country's petroleum sector. Legislation being debated aims, among other things, to raise royalties and change the structure of the joint ventures under which IOCs currently operate.

With a cease-fire under its belt -- and crude nudging $80 a barrel -- the government will likely redouble efforts to get the legislation passed. Speaking last week, Shell's chief financial officer said the company and the entire industry would defend their interest.

But they are under growing pressure. By offering to allocate 10% of oil revenues to delta residents, the government may have peeled away political support the IOC's enjoyed from some regional governors, says Eurasia Group analyst Sebastian Spio-Garbrah. Second, resource-hungry Chinese companies threaten to step in if the IOCs don't acquiesce to new terms.

So will the government be the real winner? Perhaps, in the short term. But as recent big oil finds by the likes of Anadarko Petroleum in Ghana and Sierra Leone demonstrate, Nigeria is not the only game in town when it comes to West African oil. Tightening the screws for short-term gain could hamper long-term development of Nigeria's resources. The real winners might be companies like Anadarko if burnt IOCs decide to move aggressively into Nigeria's neighbors.