With a decision that has shocked many around the world, on Friday October 9, 2009 the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that President Barak Hussein Obama is the 2009 winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace. This announcement not only recognizes extraordinary accomplishments but also brings with it extraordinary expectations.
In 1895 Alfred Nobel bequeathed the largest share of his fortune to a series of prizes, the Nobel Prizes. His intent was to award a prize to "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." This year the Nobel Committee determined that President Obama, “…for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples… Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.”
What President Obama has demonstrated on the world stage is that by themselves ideologies are not rational. They tend to focus on and confuse the imagery of the “should be” and “ought to be” with the practical “is.” Without people who are able to inject pragmatism and tie logic and reason to an ideology, it can take an institution, group or country down some very perilous roads. This is why ideologues (people who profess ideologies) make terrible politicians and ideology can make for very bad public and foreign policy. Ideologues are so focused on the “should be” that they fail to take into account the practical applications of the “how.”
This award is as much an affirmation of President Obama’s multilateral foreign policy agenda as it is a condemnation of his predecessors, President Bush 43’s unilateral agenda. In this developing global economy, it is the multilateral vision and approach to conflict resolution that will carry the day.
In a domestic context, what the neo-conservatives can learn from this award is that constructive dialogue and negotiations based on honesty are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult conflicts. As it is with nuclear proliferation, a global financial crisis, and global warming; so it is with health care insurance reform and the restructuring of the domestic economy.
Through out the entire health care insurance reform debate, most of the Republican (neo-conservative) response has been negative and obstructionist. They have preferred to deal in the myopic imagery of the “should be” and “ought to be” and failed to offer any constructive alternatives plans that would take the debate into the practical “can be” and “is.”
Individuals such as Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has vowed to make health care Obama’s "Waterloo" and urged conservative activists to help "break him…" DeMint has compared the United States under Obama to the 1930’s Nazi Germany under Hitler; and cast the heated health care fight as "a real showdown between socialism and freedom…This is a battle I’ve been waiting for and hoping for, for years…We’ve got to stop the socialization of medicine . . . . We’ve stirred up a fight." Senator DeMint along with Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and others have been more concerned with political gain than the public health and welfare. This has not served positive interests and has no place in intelligent and informed public discourse.
As the data comes in on the Baucus bill the neo-conservative argument is beginning to loose steam. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Baucus bill will insure 94 percent of Americans and cost $829 billion over 10 years while actually reducing the federal budget deficit by $81 billion over a decade. The bill could also, according to the CBO, lead to “continued reductions in federal budget deficits” in the years that follow.
On the economic front, the pace of job loss in the U.S. is slowing and the labor market is showing signs of stabilizing, according to a new report. A recent report published by payroll services provider ADP and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers reveals that companies in the private sector cut 371,000 jobs in July. This is the lowest amount seen in nine months, the report indicated, suggesting that the job market could be steadying after several months of decline.
The health care insurance reform bill and economic stabilization are just two examples of progress that has been made by the Obama administration in spite of the challenges that it has faced at the hands of neo-conservative’s. Fighting the President every step of the way for the appearance of political gain at the expense of economic and physical health of the people they have been elected to represent.
The neo-con’s can learn an invaluable lesson from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Ideologues (people who profess ideologies) make terrible politicians and ideology can make for very bad public and foreign policy. Work to create a new climate in American politics. Allow diplomacy and civil dialog to regain a central position in American politics. Like President Obama with the Nobel Prize for Peace; with this tactic, we all win.
Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program “On With Leon,” and a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or call (901) 413-0203 for media queries and speaking requests.
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