Thoughts on Obama winning Nobel Prize?

[Sher Foundation]

This kind of sentiment is exactly what gets the US into wars and global policing (TEAM AMERICA FUCK YEAH!). We believe that we are the most self righteous nation on the Earth just because there is a large enough middle class with computers, cars, and nikes to hide the fact that there are problems just as bad in the US than there are in other places. You bring up Punjab and the Indian government. There have been allegations that the Sikhs have been targeted for genocide, well compare that to the Native Americans. The Native Americans, the original inhabitants of this land, have been wiped out from the culture completely. When was the last time you saw a film starring Native Americans? Or about their issues? How about a class on their history? How about their religion and languages? None, why? Because all that died out when on the Trail of Tears when we practiced physical and cultural genocide against them.

Way to twist around my statement. If you understood my sentiment as you stated, you would know that my feelings are not "TEAM AMERICA FUCK YEA." What happened with the Native Americans was inhumane to say the least and in no way am i condoning it. Every kid in school knows what happened to the Native Americans and that is not an overstatement. I am not happy to be on the winning side than the losing side, id rather see US on this side instead of China or Russia.

Ok sure, we have some problems here (minorities, poverty, huge gap between rich and poor), but at least we are good when it comes to foreign policy...right? Here's just a small list of great decisions we have made to help the citizens of the world.

-Illegal (by intl law) coups of the following DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED leaders who actually did great things for their countries: Arbenz of Guatemala (Operation PBSUCCES), Mossadeg of Iran (Operation Ajax), Pathet Lao of Laos, Velasco of Ecaudor,Aristide of Haiti
-Military and Financial Support for corporate friendly dictators that ruthlessly suppressed their people: Ngo Diem of Vietnam, Batista of Cuba, Somoza of Nicaragua, Zia, Ayub Khan, and Musharaff of Pakistan, Pinochet of Chile, oh man the list could go on.
-The Taliban in Afghanistan = product of CIA tactical training for the Mujahideen of the Soviet counter-invasion in the 80s. Gave them arms, support, and money to fight the Soviets but then left completely the minute the war was over. Perfect breeding ground for Taliban and Al Quaeda.
- These two pictures speak volumes: http://nikhasnan.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/c12820-32.jpg
http://28thamendment.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/rumsfeld-saddam.jpg

The US :
- Cured Polio
- Forgave billions of dollars of debt of european countries after WW2 and gave billions and trillions of dollars as grants to countries around the world
- Marshall Plan, truman doctrine. pumping of ridiculous amounts of money into discouraged countries as well, not just to rebuild europe
- Went to the aid of countless countries including indonesia, france, germany during earthquakes, hurricane disasters, rebuilding broken roads and railways while not a single country helped out during the san fran earthquake, or hurricane katrina, to name a few. Less than a billion was offered as relief for hurricane katrina TOTAL from all countries worldwide...thats it
- Created United Nations
- Created Internet

These pictures speak volumes of how the iraqis ACTUALLY felt after saddam was captured:
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/images/Iraqi%20Man%20Hugging%20Soldier%20Ramadi.JPG
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_QfVWU-2pVL4/Sv3_vmCZNPI/AAAAAAAAJtM/rtBw2OmReKQ/s1600/US%2Bsoldier%2Bshakes%2Bhands%2Bwith%2Ban%2BIraqi%2Bboy%2Bin%2BBaghdad%27s%2BHurriya%2Bneighbourhood%2Bon%2BDecember%2B23,%2B2008.jpg
http://media.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/photos/images/june09/iraq_out_sm/iraq_out01.jpg

What im trying to say is, dont buy into propaganda (especially some of the propaganda i wrote) hahaha. You would be crazy to think the US is basically the second coming of satan.

Still, I understand your sentiment. I for sure am happy that I am on the ruthless "winning" side than the righteous losers. The only problem is that China will most likely be the new superpower in less than 20 years. We are teeter-tottering with bankruptcy while they are industrializing and urbanizing at a rate unprecedented in the history of mankind. We all know the stereotype of how aggressive and successful Chinese are in America, well, imagine 1.1 billion of them.

PLEASE do not start with me on China. Yea it looks like china will be reaching global hegemony soon. So according to you that means 1.1 billion successful chinese? Fuck no!!! Please look up the GDP per capita stats of the world. Whether you take a look at the IMF or the CIA world factbook or even the world bank stats, the U.S. doubles, triples, quadruples, and more the figures of China's GDP per capita. If you know anything about politics and economics you would know that the lifestyle of an average american is far better than that of a chinese and the gap between the rich and poor in China is exponentially greater. And this is just comparing the US to China and not China to the rest of the world where it ranks in the 100s (out of less than 200 countries in the world).

Back to the initial topic. What im trying to say is that the U.S. is not perfect and politics definitely runs deep, but Obama has done some good things for us and we are heading in the right direction as shown through empirical evidence and not just opinionated evidence. While i respect everyone's surprisingly anti-american sentiment, opinions needs to be based and analyzed through the flip side of the argument as well.

 

[Varun]

I definitely think everyone is proud of the freedoms America grants us. Thats why I can be so open about my anti-military complex and foreign policy assessments of the US government. But, we gotta realize that we, as a military and governing body, are guilty of many of the things we accuse other governments of. My opinion (and whats that worth? lol) on some of the aforementioned things:

-Jonas Salk cured polio, not the US government.

-Marshall Plan was good for Europe and so was the Berlin Airlift and support for Western Germany.

-Marshall Plan did not do shit for Eastern Europe countries that embraced communism. They would have died out if the USSR did not create a completive plan (similar to Marshall) for them.

-Truman Doctrine was terrible. You know how I listed all those countries where the U.S. supported business-friendly dictatorships over socialist friendly democracies, thats hows the US did it. Look again at all the countries I listed earlier, those were all products of the Truman, Containment, Nixon, and Reagan doctrines.

-We selectively choose which countries to aid. Innocent civilians are dying to natural/military disasters all the time but if they are Palestinian, North Korean, Cuba, Zimbabwean, Iranian, etc, then we won't even send a box of food aid because of "economic sanctions/trade embargoes"

-We helped create the UN but don't even bother following its own resolutions (Iraq invasion) or report our illegal international activities (all the CIA coups and combat actions I listed earlier).

-We are in a trade deficit with China. They have trillions of our dollars and can devalue the dollar at any moment. If our trade would end with them, we would not have the manufacturing and industrial capital to be self-sufficient. Basically, we are dependent on them, (and I guess, vice-versa but China can still always sells to other buyers in EU, India, Japan, Russia, etc).

So thats that. Paavan is right that America has done great things and most of that is the product of its citizens.The government itself, however, is always selling out to the military-industrial complex and other powerful corps. He's also right that Obama is a great shift for our country but we still have to realize that monuments of change are necessary, particularly the Military-Industrial complex and all the other corporations that con tax payers out of BILLIONS for their own profit.

"A Patriot must always be willing to defend his country from its government."

 

[HarmanSingh]

I definitely think everyone is proud of the freedoms America grants us. Thats why I can be so open about my anti-military complex and foreign policy assessments of the US government. But, we gotta realize that we, as a military and governing body, are guilty of many of the things we accuse other governments of. My opinion (and whats that worth? lol) on some of the aforementioned things:

-Jonas Salk cured polio, not the US government.

-Marshall Plan was good for Europe and so was the Berlin Airlift and support for Western Germany.

-Marshall Plan did not do shit for Eastern Europe countries that embraced communism. They would have died out if the USSR did not create a completive plan (similar to Marshall) for them.

-Truman Doctrine was terrible. You know how I listed all those countries where the U.S. supported business-friendly dictatorships over socialist friendly democracies, thats hows the US did it. Look again at all the countries I listed earlier, those were all products of the Truman, Containment, Nixon, and Reagan doctrines.

-We selectively choose which countries to aid. Innocent civilians are dying to natural/military disasters all the time but if they are Palestinian, North Korean, Cuba, Zimbabwean, Iranian, etc, then we won't even send a box of food aid because of "economic sanctions/trade embargoes"

-We helped create the UN but don't even bother following its own resolutions (Iraq invasion) or report our illegal international activities (all the CIA coups and combat actions I listed earlier).

-We are in a trade deficit with China. They have trillions of our dollars and can devalue the dollar at any moment. If our trade would end with them, we would not have the manufacturing and industrial capital to be self-sufficient. Basically, we are dependent on them, (and I guess, vice-versa but China can still always sells to other buyers in EU, India, Japan, Russia, etc).

So thats that. Paavan is right that America has done great things and most of that is the product of its citizens.The government itself, however, is always selling out to the military-industrial complex and other powerful corps. He's also right that Obama is a great shift for our country but we still have to realize that monuments of change are necessary, particularly the Military-Industrial complex and all the other corporations that con tax payers out of BILLIONS for their own profit.

"A Patriot must always be willing to defend his country from its government."

Thank you Varun.

 

[terabaap]

You do know that corporations' profits are taxed right?(Twice, and are the one of the highest in the world)
Let's try having a smaller government. Shouldn't that cut down spending? How about we lower my income taxes too? What percent of the nation pays for 90% of the governments income tax revenue? Hell, while we are at it, let's lower my property taxes. Oh wait, even with the high amt of taxes, states are still managing to go bankrupt(NJ, NYC, CA, just to name a few) How do we fix that problem? Tax more. Brilliant. You also do understand that the only "industry" practically left in the US is the military industry. There is no more manufacturing in this country(which is a shame really, that's one way to have economic power). I could go on, but it is good that we realize that there are both sides to the argument.

 

[Saleem]

You also do understand that the only "industry" practically left in the US is the military industry. There is no more manufacturing in this country(which is a shame really, that's one way to have economic power).

This is false. I agree with you that manufacturing in America has died (due to cheap labor abroad) but that doesnt mean we can all just jump to the conclusion that military is the only remaining industry. The US exports talent, in terms of high tech, finance talent, etc. We also, unfortunately, are a large exporter of debt.. pretty much how we finance things

 

[terabaap]

You also do understand that the only "industry" practically left in the US is the military industry. There is no more manufacturing in this country(which is a shame really, that's one way to have economic power).

This is false. I agree with you that manufacturing in America has died (due to cheap labor abroad) but that doesnt mean we can all just jump to the conclusion that military is the only remaining industry. The US exports talent, in terms of high tech, finance talent, etc. We also, unfortunately, are a large exporter of debt.. pretty much how we finance things

damnit will you let me blindly post generalized statements in the hope that someone may agree with me.

 

[Saab]

I read the decision to give the award, and I read things such as can, will, hope, and other words that just state he hasnt done something and they hope he will. Look, its a great award, and it means a lot, but Ive always seen that nobels for sciences(bio, chem, physics, etc) have always been more important. Usually the people that really want peace are the ones that dont want these medals, or do it never to seek a nobel, or have done it wayyyy before they got the award and get awarded down the line. He hasnt done jack shit. Im not going to give analogies because there arent any.

My dad was shortlisted for a nobel for chemistry, but then he unfortunately passed away. They dont offer these things posthumously. Why they would give something as an award that means that person is the beacon of "peace" in this world to someone who has yet to do anything but to give us platitudes that proffer to us nothing more than empty words is beyond me. Im an obama supporter, but even I know he has done nothing tangible and constructive for nationwide, or even worldwide, peace.

We are a huge nation that can change the world, yet all we can do is offer hope. People in thailand, burma, china...there doing way more with so much stacked against them.