The Nobels reward work in progress: ML King ('64), Tutu ('84), Mandela and de Klerk ('93)

[HamdenRice]

The Nobel Committee does not just reward completed accomplishments. They also have a history of looking at important peace processes and rewarding them in progress.

When Martin Luther King won in 1964, the country had passed the Civil Rights Act, but not the Voting Rights Act, and many of King's most famous actions were still to come in the mid to late 60s.

When Tutu won in 1984 he was just getting the South African Council of Church's extensive network of justice and reconciliation workers off the ground, but it was clear that it was going to be different and more successful than anything that South Africans had tried in decades.

When Mandela and de Klerk won in 1993, South Africa was still technically an apartheid state in which blacks did not have elected representatives, and the country was in a state of virtual civil war, which would last until the elections in spring 1994.

The scope of the Obama administration's works in progress is breath-taking: ending the war in Iraq, finally bringing American pressure to bear to end settlements in Palestine and bringing the two sides together, nuclear disarmament, reaching out to Iran in a respectful and constructive manner, participating in international efforts to curb global warming, and transforming the G8 into the G20 so that countries in the global South will have a stronger say in global economic issues -- and above all making it clear that the US will use diplomacy as its primary foreign policy tool, and bolstering international organizations and cooperation to do so.

Well deserved, Mr. President!

[FrenchieCat]

1. The haters don't understand that.....

they wanted it all done before this President got his!

[Ineeda]

2. quote from Committee:

"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples"
IMO, this is exactly right. It should always be about the effort, not necessarily the end result. (give him a bit more time for that.)

[uponit7771]

3. Please repeat this often and outloud

[MoJoWorkin]

4. Thank you.

[PATRICK]

5. Best introductory post I've seen so far

to actually explain the award. As the Obama administration unfolds, not without some pain, it compares favorably to FDR, TR, JFK and others who kept on the "presidential" power trajectory until forced to act as if they'll truly got the fundamental problems of US policy. When they got it, and how these actions turned more progressive-aggressive to be followed up with better vocalizations tending to the revolutionary is up for study, but so far things are moving pretty well- largely thanks to the kicking and screaming opposition of the greedy and the RW crazies- who ruin all attempts at compromise that would truly subvert the progressive path.

By contrast, the Dems in 2000 would have buried the stolen election and given Bush, willingly, most of what he sought with more legitimacy and continuity- had Bush cleverly been more truly cooperative. Instead with modest lip service and total inaction or negative hostile action, even ruining the nation in the process, the GOP lost everything even as they seemed to prosper in the top down criminal grab. Obama has been incredibly cooperative in giving these these spoiled children the scary chance to get back in the game and even ruin his presidency. Their intransigence is creating a vacuum the most progressive policies might fill in, by dint of hard work and popularity. It has been frightening yet progressing in spite of a mammoth set of crises and looming crises and a rabid corporate renegade conspiracy that has raped the nation's news forums. That vacuum has reserved the sanity space for the "we" factor in American democracy- against the power of the few- in fairly short and peaceful order.

Where is our assassination? Where is the sinking of the polls? the wounded beast shrieks in its growing EXPOSED impotence and desperation- as they act even worse and crazier and more de facto discredited than ever before in history. Too late, as in comparison, Obama has so far beat the traps and achieved more than his predecessors.

I was very much around when JFK pieced together his narrow win by buying heartily and dangerously into the Cold War and then being asked to sabotage his peace policies in Latin America with a mitigated and botched Bay of Pigs, on the cusp of a making Vietnam a client puppet in the conventional hot side of the Cold War. All that with little of his legislation making it through Congress. Now it seems disheartening that Obama has acted similarly(yet not the same) with gratuitously buying into some of Regan heartland New Democrat political illusion, the War of Terror, presidential privileges pioneered by the Usurper, yet he is a cleaner, harder worker.

Forced by intransigent forces to move past them and even, someday to fully articulate the progressive future the world actually requires and wants- after the wheels of action grind back toward the future. He is still the man we voted for in 2008, absolutely the best choice and chance available- still A WORK IN PROGRESS in every sense of the word. Yet without each free citizen, a lone failed messiah(as the RW desperately must make him) waiting to happen again unless we put each small shoulder to that same axis.

[HamdenRice]

6. Very interesting

My father used to say that political leadership is best described by the allegedly Chinese saying, "he who rides the tiger had better not dismount."

Progressive presidents take the reins of the beast which is much, much stronger than them and spend most of their time just trying not to fall of and be devoured, and the rest trying to actually steer the thing in a positive direction.

Obama was not elected king or sorcerer in chief such that he could snap his fingers and end the wars over night. But the direction is right.

[PATRICK]

7. Ironically

it is the forces of greed and destruction who are steering this path as they strive to keep/regain control. I am a bit more cynical on the ideological quality of most of the available top leadership in these dangerous times, but I have lived through nothing but dangerous times- and will die in their midst
thanks to simple global warming, but Hope endures and the good advance.

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. This is from Alfred Nobel's will

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize is to be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Source: http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/will/short_testament...

I have no problem he won it lets hope we get more peace in the world

[Exilednight]

9. Here's the difference -

MLK DID get the civil rights act passed, and suffered great setbacks along the way. People died for his cause, including a child. Churches were burned, and King practically lived most of the early 60's in jail. King fought a power that was much greater than him.

It is true that Desmond Tutu did not see his work come to full fruition, but he did lay the ground work and had spent much of his time into realizing dream and putting the sweat equity into building that dream. When Tutu did win the prize the African Council of Churches was up and running.

Mandela pretty much endured the same struggle that MLK did. Personal imprisonment and fighting a completely uphill battle. The award was given to Mandela for a peace progress that began 4 years earlier, and came to fruition the same year as the Nobel Prize award.

Obama has yet to hang his hat on anything of such great magnitude. He has created no ground breaking organizations as Tutu did, nor has he brought peace to a large swath of the world as Mandela did, nor has he secured the rights for a group of people as MLK did, nor has he awakened the world to a very real and threatening danger as Al Gore did.

I am not saying that he won't do these things, but he has done nothing to show that he will do these things. A prize for peace is being given to a man that is getting ready to ramp up troop levels in a Muslim country - how is that peace?

[uponit7771]

10. The election of Obama alone layed the groundwork, did everyone ignore the worlds reaction to his...

...election?!
Thx

[Kaylee]

11. Amen....

His election alone changed the course of America.

[Exilednight]

12. So he deserved a prize based upon his mass appeal to the public? n/t