So, here we are.
I would like to introduce you to a few people.
This is Dr. Sima Samar. Sima is a medical doctor from Afghanistan, who has spent years advocating women's rights, even under the Taliban. Despite near-constant threats against her, she has built and maintained schools for women in Pakistan and Afghanistan, publicly advocated ending use of the burqa, and heads the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
She has worked tirelessly and without regard to her own safety to advance the rights of women, despite the direct opposition of her government, for nearly three decades.
This is Dr. Denis Mukwege. He is a gynecologist and obstetrician in the Congo. For the 12 years of the conflict in Congo, he has worked, often under fire, to save the lives and health of women gang-raped by Congolese soldiers and militia, and is considered by many to be the world's foremost expert in repairing the physical damage from multiple rapes; he has performed more than 21,000 surgeries since the war began, sometimes as many as 10 per day.
He works 18 hour days, most of the time.
This is Wei Jingsheng. He has spent his life in protest against the Chinese communist system, and has paid for it - he's been in prison for 17 years of his life. He has made reforming the Chinese government his priority and his personal mission - despite the government's imprisonment of him, and their attempts to silence him - for thirty years.
Would you like to know what these three extraordinary people all have in common?
Their achievements, contributions, and efforts were all judged to be less, for purposes of comparison, than those of this man:
President Obama has accomplished a lot during his first ten months in office.
I can't believe I was able to type that with a straight face. I need to find a new poker crew.
During the first ten months of his administration, President Obama has failed to support our troops in ways that make their tremendous and ongoing sacrifices worthwhile. He has failed to keep even the simplest of his campaign promises, steered us into ever-greater military commitments in Afghanistan, insulted our allies, pandered to our enemies, weakened the defenses not only of our country but of many others, and thrown the entire weight and prestige of the United States behind global warming control.
And yet, the Nobel Peace Prize judges found that his "accomplishments" outweighed those of a doctor who has performed thousands of surgeries, an educator, and a tireless political activist.
It can't be race; Dr. Mukwege is darker than President Obama.
I wonder what the ever-to-be-considered-more-important-than-domestic-opinion foreign news services have to say?
Could they be saying, I don't know,
“This isn’t the first mistake of the Committee, but it is the biggest. The value of the Nobel Peace Prize has been diminished.” -LINK
Or maybe - just a thought -
"Obama is being given his award for mere words — for striking fashionable poses in favour of multilateralism, for making a nice speech in Cairo, for offering “hope.” Months after Americans learned to dismiss Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign slogans as the meaningless bromides they were, Scandinavians are still drinking his Kool-aid." -LINK
Perhaps they're saying this:
”What got into the committee to award this prize to a man who has yet to live up to the high expectations? Were they drunk?” -LINK
You know what's really cool? They said ALL those things.
You know what I said?
What a fucking joke.
