Obama…the Politics Behind The Peace Prize

So Barak Obama has now been given the Noble Peace Prize???   I can understand people like Mother Teresa, MLK jnr or Gandhi et al being handed it but an american president who signs declarations that result in the slaughter of innocent civilains is beyond me!  Of course it is akin to the various celebrities who constantly receive honorary awards…e.g. degrees from universities for simply being a celeb…whilst other ordinary joes have to study damn hard to earn theirs!  But the real issue here is that it is a political decision to award a peace prize tp a man who espouces peace from a podium in a country who’s government constantly invades and intervenes in the politicis of other countries it conseiders a threat to its  global economic position.  It’s one thing to defend a country from attack but quite another to invade a country and impose your rule on it…just because you can!  However, in american politics there has always been the division between the so called ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’.  It seems that the world also is polarised this way into those who want global peace and those who want dominance at any cost.  Politics as we all know is a very dirty, sordid, unprincipled and dishonest business and dangerous to those who would stand up and speak out against injustice…people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King,  Oscar Romero, John Lennon, Jane Fonda, Malcolm X, Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela all learned that to the cost of their careers, their freedom and ultimately their lives!   War is big business, Samuel Colt made a fortune from supplying the yankees and the confederates during the american civil war.  Nowadays BAE systems and the like make fortunes from supplying weapons of destruction and arms. The new british conservative party leader David Cameron was even banging on about britain’s presence in Afghanistan pledging better weapons and such yet saying nothing about whether or not we should ev en be involved in a situation that has nothing to do with us.  Politicians it seems are indebted to those with wealth and power, those who keep them in office, who swell the party coffers with huge donations in return for favours granted (of course this doesn’t happen in real life) and who seek honours and knighthoods in return. The whole dirty business is then repeated by those now given political legitimacy by sitting in the house of lords and ensuring that their point of view is upheld. If words could adequately sum up politics it would be personal agenda, hidden agenda, personal aggrandisement, wealth and power.  I don’t think there are many honest people left in politics anymore and if there is, I  believe their own code of ethics is subsummed under the party line and their voices are either drowned out or ignored by those who kowtow to the power hungry power elite , those politicians who are empire builders and career chasers….rather than true public servants.   Politics is too polished nowadays….too much contrived mealy mouthed ’spin’ and not enough true words spoken frm the heart…sack the speech writers I say and let the politician be unfettered, free from politicial bias or outside pressure and then, perhaps we will see a real change in our situations.   Of course that’s rather simplistic, the move from true democracy has been evident in the shape of growing globalisation and the erosion of civil rights and liberties including the taking away  of power to the people and  refusal to allow public debate or polling on serious issues….when was the last time politicians allowed the public the right to vote on any serious issues?    It’s time voting power was returned to the electorate in all countries and majority rule wins the day.  It’s not a perfect system, but we would at least have a say….but wait…..even the electoral process is flawed…..in the usa we had ‘hanging chads’ instead of putting a plain old ‘ X’ and of course ol’ George ’dubbya’ Bush  managed to get elected during that fiasco!  Frankly I must confess, I don’t quite know what the answer is but a more publicly accountable government and system would seem a step in the right direction to start with and perhaps the scrapping of  doling out awards to those and such as those  and these being given on true merit….not because of poiltical expediency or to curry favour. To sum up, should Barak Obama have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize….well, only time will tell, let’s all hope he lives up to that accolade.