Nobel Peace Prize So 20th Century

As Swedish peace activists and virtually everyone I know have pointed out, the Nobel Prize should not have been awarded to Barack Obama. The Peace Prize, awarded by a Finnish (not Swedish) government-appointed panel is politicized. Last year it was given to Al Gore, a politician who advocates everyone else's cutting back so he can consume more, and this year to another Democratic Party hack, Barack Obama. Perhaps the Norwegians gave it to him because they believe him to have been born in Norway. But they were afraid to ask for his birth certificate.

In any case the Peace Prize has been degraded. Not that I would think that the Scandinavian governments in Sweden and Norway have any moral substance to give such an award. In the 1930s Sweden quietly back Hitler, and although it was formally neutral during the Second World War, a third of Swedes did not mind seeing six million Jews gassed, and more than a handful likely were happy about it.

I would add that their most famous intellectual, the socialist Gunnar Myrdal, supported Hitler during the 1930s. Roland Huntford's book New Totalitarians dissects the ugly, amoral quality of Swedish socialism. Huntford points out that noticeable elements of feudalism continued into the 1950s in Sweden, specifically the bruk system in which workers in certain factories were tied to the factories, essentially as serfs (with their homes the property of the factories). Notice that American socialists admire Swedish culture because it is reactionary. The Swedes are barely out of the Middle Ages. But remember that it is the Finnish who give the Peace Prize, the Swedes the other prizes.

Yassir Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize before refusing to make peace. Obama's chief contribution to peace was reappointing George W. Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert M. Gates, after telling Americans that he is for "change". "Change" to him meant appointing the same guy. It is difficult to take the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which takes an partisan role in American politics, seriously.

The Nobel Peace Prize is a thing of the past. I'm sure recipients want the monetary award, but would you want to share a "peace prize" with Al Gore, Yassir Arafat and Barack Obama?