Nobel Democracy-Promotion Prize

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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8 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    No justice, something something.Report

    • E.D. Kain in reply to Jaybird says:

      All beer and no play makes Homer something something.Report

      • E.D. Kain in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        No that’s not right. What is it? All work and no beer makes Homer something something…?Report

      • Jaybird in reply to E.D. Kain says:

        Well, to be somewhat more serious in the response, I remember when there was serious discussion over Dubble Dubya’s “Seriously? Green avatars? Seriously?” post. Has the earnestness in questioning dub-dub been replaced by a more hard-nosed realism on this particular topic?

        For my part, I would have seen a Peace Prize going to somebody in Iran as, yes, up there with giving it to Tutu and/or the Dalai Lama. I would have been taken aback and said “whoa, they’re firing a shot across a bow, there”.

        Obama getting it is *NOT*, in fact, making me think that there is a shot across anybody’s bow.

        There are “he’s not George Bush” jokes, there are “you just know that Clinton’s head friggin’ *EXPLODED*” jokes, there are “let’s give him a Grammy” jokes, and, my favorite, the whole on Friday talking to my to-the-left-of-me co-workers and saying “did you hear that Obama won the Peace Prize?” and them putting their hands on their hips and asking “okay, what’s the friggin’ punchline?” responses that were far, far funnier than any of the jokes before that.

        It seems to me that the Peace Prize could have been an earthquake. It was a pity that it was not used as such.Report

  2. Louis B. says:

    Giving the prize to Neda would have been a bad idea as well. It represents the idolization of victims above actual peacemakers, and while we should certainly have compassion for victims we should not let this blind us to true achievements in the field of peace.

    Of course, idolizing victims is nowhere near as bad as idolizing perpetrators, which is what this year’s award has done.Report

  3. You could say more or less the same about Martin Luther King. All those people marching in the streets getting their heads bashed in by the cops when they could have been sitting peacefully in the back of the bus.Report