Dear President Obama,
You should return the Nobel Peace Prize. I now believe that novel “1984” is true. “War is Peace” – that was your message. You must have a hard time sleeping Mr Bush. Woops I get confused. Who is in the white house.
You spoke of “the world as it is” and threw a cloak of justification over the grisly escalation in Afghanistan by insisting that “war is sometimes necessary” – but generalities do nothing to mitigate the horrors of war being endured by others.
You gave the world a pro-war speech. The context instantly turned the speech’s insights into flackery for more war.
Your general who is running the US war effort in Afghanistan spoke to a Congressional committee in Washington about your recent pledge to begin withdrawal of US troops in July 2011. “I don’t believe that is a deadline at all,” Stanley McChrystal said.
Actual policy always, in the real world, profoundly trumps even the best rhetoric.
War is not peace. It never has been. It never will be.
You had the chance to be great. But your are not. You are the Washington consesus in person. A company flack.
Return the Nobel. Let them give it to someone who deserves it.
Obama is way too concerned with pleasing others to take a firm stand on his own principles — whatever they may be.
Bush and Cheney were deplorable in my eyes, but I cannot accuse them of not taking strong stands. They were senseless stands based upon senseless assumptions, but they stood strong on them — almost to the destruction of our nation.
We need Obama to stand up at last as strong and as tall as the previous adminstration did. Obama acknowledges the lunacy of the past 8 years, so he knows better. He needs to stand up and do better, too.
Obama does not get realpolitik. He’s a novice, an amateur, and worse, an idealist. The world of politics is a place of thieves, whores, pimps, and actors. Obama, sad to say, (for all his intellect, articulate manner and idealism) is lost amongst this coterie of shills for the plutocrats.
He needs to get tough, down and dirty, and twist some arms. Politics is a place of moral combat meant to be fought not by mere arguments. It is not meant for the “nice”, a word which once upon a time meant stupid.
Also, his pussy-footing speech-making is why real health care never had a chance. He apparently does not understand the real pain that Americans experience.
Yes, Obama should return the Nobel Peace Prize or better yet, give it to one of the thousands who are more deserving. Perhaps, the Nobel Prize Committee thought that they could influence him. Talk about idealism.
He is no doubt the first person to receive the prize because Americans had previously selected a moron to run the country. The Peace Prize Committee must have thought that the American people were atoning for their lunacy and wanted to encourage that inclination (and who could blame them).
If these words seem a bit harsh, it’s only because Americans have been numbed and dumbed by all the feel good jargon that has filled the air with shallow thoughts and cream-puff dreams. It’s time to forget the new age crap that too many Americans pass off as high-falutin’ nobility.
Dreaming of a better world will not make it so (and I like Lennon a lot). We need some real activism. Where the fuck is the progressive movement in this country? And no, I am not talking about the world of bumper stickers, T-shirts, blogs, and moveon.org.
I am talking about people willing to give their time and connect with the millions of alienated and dispossessed. It’s time for a revolution. Let’s start and push for abolishing the Senate and getting rid of the biggest whores in America.
That is one kick-ass post Mikhail.