Obama Haters Going To War Over Nobel Peace Prize

I can't remember the exact quote or who said it, but it invoked Zen along these lines: don't let praise go to your head and don't let criticism get you too uptight.

That's the attitude I always bring to awards announcements, whether I'm in the running or just observing. It doesn't matter if it’s the Emmys, the Grammys, the Oscars, the Pulitzer, the Nobel peace prize, or awards at my day job. I find I always come away from the winner announcements with the exact same three feelings.

1. There's always someone I'm happy for, that I feel was rightly recognized.
2. There's always someone I feel was neglected.
3. There's always someone I feel completely undeserving who did win, causing my mind to be involuntarily filled with disturbing visions of the winner performing unholy sex acts upon the judging committee to secure victory.

With these pre-programmed reactions in place, news of Obama's Nobel peace prize victory moved me only slightly. I was glad his efforts at peace were recognized, as I would be for anyone, but I must confess my formidable eyebrows arched a bit at the idea of something called a "peace prize" being awarded to someone who is waging war. I also haven't forgotten that Henry Kissinger won the Nobel peace prize in 1973. Yes, he negotiated a cease-fire, but he also oversaw campaigns of murder in South America.

Back to Obama. I'm glad the win recognizes that he has achieved something simply by not being a flaming asshole like President Cheney and Figurehead Bush. I'm glad the award calls a global B.S. on their macho-swagger cliché: wherein men talk tough but dodge service, lead from the rear, mock those who serve, and whine when other countries won't help their war games.

My personal goal is to do what little I can to move humanity away from war, which is why I voted for Obama. Unfortunately, as much as he has spoken of peace, I haven't seen much action. Dude's barely been in office a year and things can't happen overnight, so I'll give him time, but after nearly a decade of chickenhawks, my patience is thin.

So awards don't affect me much, but what does move me to unrestrained laughter is the predictable-as-the-sunrise rage of the Obama-haters. I especially like when they are so rabid their hate signals get crossed. For example, they claim the award means nothing while simultaneously being outraged that Obama doesn't deserve it.

Here's an experiment. Next time someone rants about what a joke it is that Obama won the Nobel, ask that person who won it last year. Chances are, they'll have no idea. If they do, ask them if that person deserved it. Who knew that all this time, Obama-haters were also experts on Nobel history? Who knew they had such in-depth authoritative opinions on who it is awarded to, why it is awarded and what it means? What a strange coincidence!

Face it haters, you hate Obama. If the dude found a penny on the sidewalk, you'd be pissed. If he stepped on a dog turd, you'd claim it was sent by God to punish him.

Obama-haters, I hear your outcry about Obama's Nobel win. I just wish you had the same rabid reaction when Bush let Osama bin Laden escape and when Cheney handed his mercenary buddies your tax money to kill Iraqi civilians.

As mad as you are about Obama's peace prize, I wish you were at least that mad about war.


===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Nazis Always Think They're Fighting the Nazis (or, It's a slippery slope from free prostate exams to mandatory gas chambers)

Say what you want about President Obama, but he has done one thing very well. He has altered our national discussion. The big question of his term is: how to improve health care? What a refreshing change from the big question of the Bush years: how can we funnel even more money to the rich? Change has come! Instead of screwing up the entire planet, we've graduated to screwing ourselves.

Apparently change upsets a lot of people. This past summer, the usual round of breaking news (it's hot, it's really hot, it's not that hot) was completely pushed aside by footage from town hall meetings and demonstrations. Americans turned out in large numbers to let their opinions about Obama and his healthcare plan be known. This made for some disturbing video clips. (Like this, this, and this.)

Before you get discouraged by this ugliness, look on the bright side. The mayhem at the town halls proves we have at least a partly-functioning democracy. People are free to stand up in public and present views opposed to our country's leaders, opposed to the nation's majority and even opposed to any possible reality.

It's that last group I want to focus on, that cluster of people who see a national health care program as the sole intermediate step between where America is now and late-1930's Nazi Germany. If how a country makes a seamless transition from free prostate exams to mandatory gas chambers is a mystery to you, chances are you're sane. Or, according to supporters of the thesis, you've been duped.

Human history sadly never lacks stories of genocide, but for some reason the Nazi reign sticks in the American mind. Can a brother get an update? Nazis are so old-school. They've been replaced by Commies, then Russian Commies, then Warlords, then Terrorists. Official enemies come and go, but America's favorite bad guy remains the Nazis.

Maybe it's due to the perplexing question of how Nazi Germany came to exist at all. How did it happen? How did a country famous for something as harmless as beer and ridiculous as lederhosen become the most murderous, destructive force the world has ever seen not counting Wal-Mart?

I think the Obama-is-evil crazies provide the answer. See, everything happens for a reason, even nutty people showing up in public. Whackos have their uses, I guess.

Let me explain. What cracks me up, in a we're-all-doomed-so-laugh-or-you'll-cry kind of way, is that the people who scream Nazi the loudest, who call people Nazis the most, are also the people who act most similar to the Nazis, or are at least the most ready to become American neo-Nazis. Let's call them Americanazis and compare.

The original Nazis believed without question the fact-free ravings of a leader with access to major media, perpetual rage, and dubious sanity. Americanazis do too (Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh). The original Nazis believed the big lie: Jews were taking over, and if you didn't see evidence of it, it's because they were so skilled at hiding their schemes. The Americanazis believe Obama's healthcare plan and his every action (talking to schoolkids, planting a garden, playing basketball, etc.) are secret plans of evil and if it seems to your observation to be otherwise, that's because he is so skilled at hiding his nefariousness. Nazis were told they were under attack and they believed it (as explained by Goering in his famous quote on how to start a war). Americanazis are told they are oppressed and under attack, and they believe it as well. Reference the ludicrous War on Christmas and the perpetual warnings against liberals, education, the media, political correctness, as well as many other dastardly abstract nouns.

So maybe all of that can be overlooked, but what makes Americanazis prime candidates as Nazi re-enactors is their disturbing sexual attraction to firearms. That completes the Nazi package: crazy leaders, gullibility, anger, paranoia and guns.

How did Nazi Germany arise? There were some key angry cult-leaders stoking a bunch of scared and willing-to-put-anger-before-thought believers. Before long, people are committing horrible evil acts because they are convinced they are doing so against horrible evil people.

Nazis always think they're fighting the Nazis. It's the eternal wisdom of "whoever smelt it dealt it" scaled to address the psychoses of the terrified, gullible, angry, armed, hate-prone demographic.

Nazis always think they're fighting the Nazis. Prove me wrong. When you fail, you know what to call me.

UPDATE: Mere seconds before I posted this, I ran across this disturbing story: Right-Wing Conference Tells Activists To Get Their Guns Ready For ‘Bloody Battle’ With Obama The Nazi (link) which neatly proves my point. The Winner of the "Most Likely To Be The Next Nazis" award is... the gang accusing others of being Nazis.

===
Larry Nocella writes The Semi-True Adventures of Lar blog at LarryNocella.com. He's the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers.

Glad to see democracy in Iran, is it authentic? American ambivalence. btw, What does it mean to lose moral authority?

So there's some trouble after the Iranian election. Silly democratic amateurs! They should learn from us Americans. We've been rocking democracy for 200-plus years, so we know how to do it right.

Psst! Bush v. Gore? Oops. Psst! The Franken-Coleman race? Double oops.

Okay! Okay! So maybe we Americans aren't that great at democracy, but at least we like to think we are, and it's the thought that counts, right? Damn, don't we get any credit just for believing?

We get so proud when we see democracy flourish in other countries, voters smiling for the cameras and showing their stained fingers! Hey wait a minute… why are they staining the middle finger? We love to see foreign democracies, until we realize the guy voted in hates us as much as the guy voted out.

Call me cynical, call me paranoid... and you'd be right, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong when I have a sinking feeling that I've already read the spoilers for made-for-TV Iran election drama.

It just strikes me as extremely convenient that a country the USA and most Western nations officially dislike, a nation they simply cannot stop from pursuing nuclear power (and nuclear weapons) is plunged into chaos during an election.

What reason do I have to doubt the official version? It's plausible enough. Maybe most Iranians are embarrassed that their face to the world, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is portraying them like ignorant, war-hungry morons. I'm sure there was someone like that as our president once.

Or maybe, just maybe, the current strife in Iran is just another example in a long line of clandestine US and CIA manipulation. (Reference Chile, Iran 1953, Cuba, Grenada, and on...)

A recent pundit cliché these days is, America has lost its moral authority. I don't know if they know what they mean by that, I suspect they've been infected by the meme, and it seems weighty and profound. I'll try to be more articulate. What it means when America loses its moral authority is that it's hard to believe that America inspires democracy instead of just inspiring its appearance, while actually subverting it.

The USA wanted regime change in Iran. Then after an election in Iran, the incumbent claims victory and opposition candidates cry foul. Wow! That sure was a lucky break for the USA!

Cynics everywhere are placing bets on which alternate ending we're going to watch: will the US pull a "Bay of Pigs" and not be there for the puppet? Or will they execute (pun?) a "Pinochet in Chile" and be there for the victor even if he proves to be a war criminal? Opposition candidates in Iran must know (or were told) they will be treated as heroes if they remove the thorn from the West's collective toe.

The CIA can't lose here. Installing a puppet isn't even essential. Chaos is a sufficient end. If you can whip up enough protest, whether founded (as when Bush "won" Florida by the Supreme Court ending a recount) or unfounded (Obama's non-existent birth certificate that actually does exist) you can attempt to deprive the official winner of legitimacy, and fill their term with late night monologue jokes, talk radio rants and extremely un-witty spam about how they didn't really win.

On the Iran situation, President Obama has even tried some philosophical flanking by stating that his response to the crisis is muted because he doesn't want anyone to think the USA is meddling. Now why would we think that?

So what's a concerned American to do? Twitter your ideas for subversion furiously or hope the anti-USA guy wins if that's what Iranians want? Wait a sec, if the Iranian leader is pro-America isn't that good for me since I'm an American? Should I care about genuine elections in Iran, or just care about what's good for me? Are we witnessing democracy in action? Or more stoking by the CIA?

Is it real? Is it fake? I don't know. I allow myself the luxury of no commitment to any belief. Ahhhh… very nice.

Here's what I'm sure of: the photos and news coming from Iran are very disturbing, what appears to be police attacking peaceful demonstrations. If they don't knock that off, I'm going to be putting aside my skepticism for some good down-home righteousness. I hope you find peace Iran, inside and with the Western governments.

I'd like for my country to get along with Iran, and I'd like their leader to be someone Iranians want elected. Lastly, I'd like a snack that has the great taste of a potato chip with the same nutritional value as broccoli.

5ewbud3t4m

===
Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? The world's first CarbonFree(R) novel according to Carbonfund.org. The book is available on Amazon.com as a paperback and Kindle eBook. It is also available for other eBook readers. For more info, visit LarryNocella.com.