Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: Why Put the Call Before the Action?
By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Three things struck me about the reactions to President Obama's surprise Nobel Prize victory.
First, the take-away line from Obama's speech—that he views the prize as a "call to action"—sums up the problem most everyone sees with the award. As I tweeted, shouldn't the Nobel Prize come as a result of action rather than as a call to it? Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan and supporter of the president, but it just seems like the Nobel committee put the call before the action here.
And that's a fairly common, fairly bipartisan reaction.
As USA Today reports, there was a great deal of surprise at the announcement. Speaking personally I can say that even my staunch Obama supporter friends on Facebook thought it was a bit, umm, odd. One friend wrote that while "I adore Obama and think he can do no wrong," she was a bit taken aback. "Call me old-fashioned, but I think that award needs to be reserved for the Gandhi-types." The committee, she thought, got a bit political.
And she's probably right. As best as I can tell, this award was as much about Obama's not being George W. Bush as about his commitment to peace (perhaps not unrelated things). There's plenty of room here for penetrating analysis and commentary about what this says about ... the Nobel committee, the world's view of the United States, and so forth. It's fertile ground for commentary.
But then you get the partisan commentariat, which seems congenitally incapable of reasoned analysis. The official GOP reaction to Obama's Nobel win? That it's "unfortunate." It reminds me of the old LBJ line about the press: He remarked that if he went down to the Potomac and walked on water the headlines the next day would read: "President Can't Swim." Sure the GOP's job is to oppose, but you can do so with class and/or grace. (The Democrats' official response was, if anything, as remarkable, comparing the GOP with the Taliban and Hamas.)
But of course extreme reactions—even when virtually everyone else is coming together in befuddled bemusement—are what get attention. But they also illustrate how detached the knee-jerk partisans are from the reality in which most of us live. It's Partisan Libs—first write the press release, fill in the blanks later.
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Tags: Barack Obama | Nobel Prize
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Reader Comments
Nobel foundation funds invested in Swedish armament industry and funds specializing in weapons of mass destruction
The issue of how the Nobel foundation funds invested in Swedish armament industry and in weapons of mass destruction. Sweden is the world's greatest exporter of arms per capita, followed by Israel.
1. Originally the directive from Alfred Nobel was to place the funds in real estate or similar safe investments, however since 1953 the foundation was allowed by the Swedish government to invest in shares, which stopped the hither to depletion of the funds.
2. The funds are at the moment approx US$ 500 million in total (it shrunk approx 20% last year).
3. The management is not done by the foundation itself, it is split across several (about ten) portfolios managed by different asset managers in Sweden and other countri es, the spread across countries and by asset type can be found here: http://nobelprize.org/nobelfoundation/finan-manag.html
4. As late as 2005, there is an explicit admission from the foundation that there are NO ethical guidelines issued to the asset managers: www.dagsavisen.no/innenriks/article256458.ece?service=articlePrint - in Norwegian)
5.There have been several 'scandals' surrounding the asset management, presumably deriving from the lack of ethical guidelines from the Nobel foundation
- In 1998, the Observer made an investigation into the investments and found that many of the world largest arms manufactureres (including Boeing, British Aerospace, GKN och Smiths Industries) were in the Nobel foundation portfolios - in 2005, a Norwegian organization 'Norwatch' looked specifically into the portfolio handled by a US firm group called T Rowe Price who in their general portfolios have manufacturers of both cluster bombs and atomic bombs (Lockheed Martin).
The Nobel foundation did not exclude the possibility that their funds were invested in such shares
6. it is probable that such investments are held in the the Bofor group, which has a high level chemical plant in Ifshahan, Iran, which manufactures TNT, and quite likely sophisticated chemical precursors used to help create nuclear enriched uranium. However, dynamite and related products was the original invention and business which gave Alfred Nobel the means to set up the prize in the first place, and he was the owner of Bofors from 1894-96, during which he "had the key role in reshaping the iron manufacturer to a modern cannon manufacturer (...)" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors
No doubt the prestige of the prize to a large degree derives from the large sums involved, but is therefore also stained by the way the money was and is procured.
But the prestige also derives from Alfred Nobels testamentary wish to promote peace and international understanding.
The paradox the funds for the Nobel Prize are invested and retained in funds related to armament productions and weapons of mass destruction and many people are unaware of this situation.
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Obama won the Heisman Award...he watched a collegiate football game!
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