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freesprite
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Registered: 10-2005
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Re: Reactions to Obama winning Nobel Prize
Henry Kissinger recieved it for pretty much the same reasons as Obama...here is his acceptance speech
Acceptance Speech*
As the Laureate was unable to be present on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 1973, the acceptance was read by Thomas R. Byrne, Ambassador of the United States to Norway
The Nobel Peace Prize is as much an award to a purpose as to a person. More than the achievement of peace, it symbolises the quest for peace. Though I deeply cherish this honour in a personal sense, I accept it on behalf of that quest and in the light of that grand purpose.
Our experience has taught us to regard peace as a delicate, ever-fleeting condition, its roots too shallow to bear the strain of social and political discontent. We tend to accept the lessons of that experience and work toward those solutions that at best relieve specific sources of strain, lest our neglect allows war to overtake peace.
To the realist, peace represents a stable arrangement of power; to the idealist, a goal so pre-eminent that it conceals the difficulty of finding the means to its achievement. But in this age of thermonuclear technology, neither view can assure man's preservation. Instead, peace, the ideal, must be practised. A sense of responsibility and accommodation must guide the behavior of all nations. Some common notion of justice can and must be found, for failure to do so will only bring more "just" wars.
In his Nobel acceptance speech, William Faulkner expressed his hope that "man will not merely endure, he will prevail".1 We live today in a world so complex that even only to endure, man must prevail - over an accelerating technology that threatens to escape his control and over the habits of conflict that have obscured his peaceful nature.
Certain war has yielded to an uncertain peace in Vietnam. Where there was once only despair and dislocation, today there is hope, however frail. In the Middle East the resumption of full scale war haunts a fragile ceasefire. In Indo-china, the Middle East and elsewhere, lasting peace will not have been won until contending nations realise the futility of replacing political competition with armed conflict.
America's goal is the building of a structure of peace, a peace in which all nations have a stake and therefore to which all nations have a commitment. We are seeking a stable world, not as an end in itself but as a bridge to the realisation of man's noble aspirations of tranquility and community.
If peace, the ideal, is to be our common destiny, then peace, the experience, must be our common practice. For this to be so, the leaders of all nations must remember that their political decisions of war or peace are realised in the human suffering or well-being of their people.
As Alfred Nobel recognised, peace cannot be achieved by one man or one nation. It results from the efforts of men of broad vision and goodwill throughout the world. The accomplishments of individuals need not be remembered, for if lasting peace is to come it will be the accomplishment of all mankind.
With these thoughts, I extend to you my most sincere appreciation for this award.
Oh and I had a few mintues and was checking out the Mets section to say "Go Yankees" but I chickened out and thought it was safer here in the political section.
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Once in a while you get shown the light In the strangest of places if you look at it right.
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10/20/2009, 5:46 pm
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Catcherlady
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Registered: 06-2006
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Your free to root for whomever you want, free. 
As for Mr. Kissinger...good for him, and I applaud his words. The difference is, he'd actually done something to deserve the honor. I'm still waiting to hear what Mr. Obama has done.
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10/21/2009, 9:38 am
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Queenyforever
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Registered: 01-2007
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Re: Reactions to Obama winning Nobel Prize
quote:
Maybe it's for what he hasn't done -- starting wars, lying about justifications, etc.
Like getting workers back on the job..
quote:
The nation's unemployment rate edged closer to 10 percent in September, but that only began to measure the miserable reality confronting America's work force.
Last month's jobless rate, reported Friday by the Labor Department, rose to a 26-year high of 9.8 percent, up from 9.7 percent in August. Employers cut a total of 263,000 jobs, far worse than analysts had expected, raising fresh concerns about the nation's ability to sustain the budding economic recovery.
But in addition to the 15.1 million people counted as officially unemployed, the Labor Department said, another 9.2 million workers last month were relegated to part-time work because their employers had scaled back their hours or they simply could not find full-time jobs.
Friday's report showed that employees averaged 33 hours of work per week last month, the lowest level on record.
Adding employees with reduced hours, along with people so discouraged that they have quit looking for jobs, to the number of people who are looking for work but have none produces a rate of unemployment plus underemployment that stood at 17 percent in September.
This figure is significant not only because of the picture it paints of the hardships workers face, but also because of what it suggests about the future.
Many economists and government officials believe the economy has technically entered a recovery. But many of these same experts are predicting a long period of high unemployment and stagnant wage growth for those who have jobs.
One contributing factor in this prognosis is the large pool of involuntary part-time workers.
By having their work weeks shortened, they have sometimes experienced sharp reductions in income. That means a corresponding loss of purchasing power, an indirect loss for the country as a whole because consumer spending accounts for roughly 70 percent of gross domestic product.
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10/21/2009, 12:02 pm
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Catcherlady
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And I'm STILL waiting to hear exactly what the man did to deserve the award...but thanks for just blindly worshipping the President anyway. 
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10/22/2009, 9:41 am
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