What Does The Nobel Peace Prize Mean and Why Did Obama Win It?

This link is a definition of what the Nobel Peace Prize is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize

These are the former Presidents who have won the prize:

1. Theodore Roosevelt (1906)
2. Woodrow Wilson (1919)
3. Jimmy Carter Jr (2002)

These are the other Nobel Laureates:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/

Every one of the former winners has made some extraordinary contribution to Peace. I may not agree with every winner’s merits (Al Gore, for example), but these individuals earned their prize through hard work and a genuine, tangible contribution. As far as I can tell none of them was awarded the prize on the assumption that they might contribute something someday.

I have to believe that Barack Obama’s win was based on his campaign promises and the hope that he might contribute to world peace in some way or another before his presidency is through. Or, one could believe that he won simply because he is not George W. Bush!

Yes, Obama talks about diplomacy and perhaps to the European community that is an improvement over his predecessor. Maybe they are so grateful that he isn’t George Bush that they gave him the prize? I can see absolutely no reason for President  Obama  to have been awarded what is supposed to be a prestigious and honorable award. What has he actually accomplished in his less than one year in office to contribute to world peace?

Is the war in Afghanistan over? Did we chase off the Taliban and free the Afghan people? Is there lasting peace in Iraq? Are we making progress with the nut job running Iran and threatening world peace, not to mention the very existence of Israel? Unless I am watching news from another planet, the answer to all of the above is a resounding NO.

There are people who are thrilled that Obama won the prize because in their minds he can do no wrong and there are those who believe that he has already changed the course of history and brought all of us closer to peace. I think that  these people are just as delusional as those who bought into the messianic tone of his presidential campaign. Those are the people who will bend down and kiss his ring at the drop of a hat and the truth be damned.

The truth……what is the truth? Obama has accomplished nothing thus far. He has given away more of our hard earned dollars than we ever imagined. He has helped (his claim), 500,000 people stop their homes from foreclosing even though at the last count their were 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.) people living in the United States and more than a million homes were estimated to go into foreclosure in 2008 alone. The figure has risen since then and there is no sign of it stopping anytime soon. The real estate crisis is far from over and many of us live in homes that are worth less than we owe on them.

Health care is a mess and Medicare is predicted to go into bankruptcy by 2018. If our government can’t fix medicare how can they fix health care for the masses? Will they continue borrowing from a nearly bankrupt system to attempt to fix another broken system? Isn’t that referred to as “Robing Peter to pay Paul”? 

I could go on and on with the non-accomplishments of Obama and the Congress but you get my drift. Nothing is better and everything is the same or worse in my neck of the woods. This is all happening under the guise of huge changes. Changes that were promised to us and are nowhere near being attained.

I am willing to give the President a chance to succeed and I am hoping that he does. I am willing to wait awhile longer for the changes to begin because the President hasn’t been in office for very long. I am willing to cut him some slack.

What I am not willing to do is reward him with a Nobel Peace Prize for what he has accomplished and contributed thus far. Shouldn’t we wait and see if he actually does something to contribute to world peace? Shouldn’t he have to earn the award like those who came before him did?

Hope is a wonderful and necessary emotion for all of us to keep in our hearts and minds and I will keep hope alive with all of the power that I possess; but, hope isn’t fact…it’s a wish and a dream and a promise as yet unfulfilled. It is not a done deal folks and it does not deserve a prize.

Keep your promises Mr. Obama and I will be your biggest cheerleader. I will shout from the rooftops that you are the only and bestcandidate for a Nobel Peace Prize. Until that happens, Mr.Obama, do your job and don’t accept prizes that you have not earned and do not deserve. Some truly worthy candidate was ripped off today and that’s a shame.