The Nobel Peace Prize really went to you and me and all of us

The real recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize was the voters of the United States of America for choosing to
opt out of the Republican straight jacket of Guns'N'God. The voters said we have had enough of using weapons
to solve all of our disputes, and using God as the justification for doing so. For saying that we rejected
the notion of continuing to carry on as if we were some kind of giant industrialized Taliban, and in big
enough numbers that even Diebold and ESS couldn't give us Vice President Palin. To a world who had pretty
much written us off after allowing Bush Lite into the White House twice, the election of Barack Obama was
proof to them that we had seen we were at the edge of the cliff, and decided not to jump off after all,
but walk back for another shot at life.

Obama knew right away what was up. He probably thought for a while about whether or not it was even a good
idea to accept it. Some NYT columnist already called him a coward for NOT refusing it. But whaddya want from
the guy? He has already said he'll try to live up to it, and if he accepts it in the name of the tens of millions
of his countrymen that voted not just for him, but for an end to Republican rule, then it's cool with me. Not
that it took any great act of courage on my part to vote, you understand. But AS A NATION, we decided that we
would toss off our lazy disinterest for once, and participate in an election as if it really mattered, because
it really did this time. If we had turned out in this kind of numbers in 2000, it would have been President
Gore in a walk.

We have not accomplished any great act of peacemaking--yet. Nor has Obama. But our national perspective has changed,
and the Birthers and the Foxsuckers (and their representatives in Congress) now stand out as loud radio interference
from the far fringe, instead of being the echo of the voice of the White House, as they did until Jan. 20 of this year.

It's every so slightly impractical to charter enough planes to Oslo so that 60 million of us can accept a gold
medal, but don't let distract from the fact that WE won this prize for voting the man in, so: good for Obama,
but good for us, too. We'll send our President to accept the medal on our behalf, thank you very much. WE will
try to have earned it.

And we peacefully deposed the most ruthless and power hungry regime in U.S. history.

But I'm in Europe much of the year, speak passable Norwegian (just a little different from Swedish, which I can speak
decently), and have more than just a vague idea of how people think over here. I just spent a weekend in Berlin with
my wife, who is German, some friends from Holland, and a bunch of people from all over NATO-land, and they pretty much
felt the same way.

and I've had much global email to confirm that thinking.

As I am working over here most of the time, I get most of my feedback orally from people I know. It's good to hear that
correspondence tends to confirm what I've been hearing both face to face an on the phone.

The world breathed an enormous sigh of relief when we elected Obama.

And not just because it was the end of Bush.

Because we'd crawled out of our hole of fear, overcame the racial divide, and voted for hope and progress.

:donut:

Ive printed out a cardboard cutout and put it next to my fake Honorary Doctorate.