Editorial
Nobel Backlash Is Symptomatic of a Deeper Elite Issue
The European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize, which is usually given to a person. There's been a good deal of astonishment over the award as people have a hard time understanding how an entity so sprawling as the EU could receive a prize ordinarily awarded to individuals.
But the Nobel was politicized long ago. The 1994 award to Yasser Arafat was quite controversial as was the 2009 award to Barack Obama, who confessed to feeling "surprised" by the award, only nine months into his term.
What is interesting about the award this year, beyond the blatant promotional gimmickry, is the caution, even contempt, with which even the mainstream news media treated the award. UK Guardian blogger Michael White was fairly scathing in his assessment, posting an article entitled, "Europe's Nobel peace prize: bad timing all round" ...
Why give the EU the Nobel peace prize now, rather than when it successfully expanded into the former Soviet Union? Is it right of the Nobel committee to award this year's peace prize to the European Union at a time when the EU is facing the gravest existential crisis of its 55-year history, and when the continent's elected leaders have repeatedly failed to resolve an economic conundrum which is largely of its own devising? No, I don't think it is.
It smacks of bad timing, just as the committee's award of the same prize to Barack Obama in 2009 – when he'd barely sat down in the Oval Office – was toe-curlingly premature. It damaged the new president's standing at home (where plenty of US voters mistrust do-gooding foreigners) and was deemed sufficiently misjudged to make Obama stay away from Oslo award ceremony. Smart man, given that the winners list contained some failures and a few rascals.
Over at the New Statesman, the headline read, "Why the European Union does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize ... Others deserve credit for '60 years of peace'." The article calls the award "a misconceived decision" and adds that the prize is symptomatic of how the EU "tak[es] the benefit of the work of others and at promot[es] its own mythology."
AP circulated an article headed, "EU detractors slam Nobel Peace Prize decision." It begins, "While some Europeans swelled with pride when the European Union won the Nobel Peace Prize, howls of derision erupted from the continent's large band of skeptics."
The article adds, "To many in the 27-nation bloc, the EU is an unwieldy and unloved agglomeration overseen by a top-heavy bureaucracy devoted to creating arcane regulations about everything from cheese to fishing quotas ... The EU to critics now appears impotent amid a debt crisis that has widened north-south divisions, threatened the euro currency and plunged several members, from Greece to Ireland to Spain, into economic turmoil."
At the Telegraph, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes, "The wrong Europe wins the Nobel Peace Prize." He adds,
News that the European Union has won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning comes as we learn that Europe's attempt to break the power of nation states through currency union has pushed Greek unemployment to a record 25.1pc – just ahead of Spain – with far worse yet to come.
It comes as EMU's North-South split turns more acrimonious by the day, with the creditor bloc and debtor bloc (to use a very crude description that does not capture what is really a story of currency misalignment) eyeing each other with increasing hatred.
It comes days after Chancellor Angela Merkel was greeted in Athens by enraged crowds, some giving Hitler salutes, others protesting that Greece has become a "slave colony of the European Union".
The Greek state had to deploy 7,000 police and impose a partial lockdown of Athens to keep her safe. The Frankfurter Allgemeine said Konrad Adenauer enjoyed a friendlier welcome in 1954 – as he deserved – less than a decade after Wehrmacht occupation (and 300,000 deaths).
Evans-Pritchard's point is that, "[Because] victim states have surrendered their key policy levers to the EU Project, they have no means of defending themselves ... The Nobel Prize comes, in short, as events have shown that the ... supranational assault on the ancient nation states of Europe – has proved to be an unmitigated disaster."
Even the Daily Beast, usually a dependable supporter of elite dominant social themes, came out against the award in an article entitled, "Nobel Peace Prize Is a Joke."
In case you thought the crumbling, ineffective, and overly-bureaucratic European Union was on life-support, the Eurozone in danger of splintering, and the single currency on the verge of collapse, a group of unexceptional Norwegians would like you to remember that the 27 member states of the EU are, in fact, the global bulwark against war and misery.
But when the Nobel Committee announced in Oslo on Friday that it would award its 2012 Peace Prize to the EU, the room full of journalists reacted appropriately—with a chorus of Joe Biden-like guffaws and incredulous yaps.
All of these responses and many more confirm what we've often suggested, that the powers-that-be are losing control of the larger promotional narrative. World governance is surely the goal, but this week the elite's own, controlled media blasted a contrivance aimed at propping up one of their most valued projects.
What we call the Internet Reformation has allowed people to see behind the curtain of many elite promotions. Fear mongering is not quite so effective anymore and neither are statist solutions offered up to "solve" problems being created by the same elements.
Perhaps there was another (clever) reason for awarding the prize to the EU that is not yet in evidence. But lacking some larger plan, the designation of the award seems symptomatic of a loss of media control that is all the more startling because the power elite OWNS the mainstream media ...
Of course, the alternative, Internet media is not yet consolidated. Perhaps that's the problem.
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Posted by Summer on 10/15/12 05:27 PM
@ kdervin, nice. Old is gold.
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Posted by Revolutionary thinking. on 10/15/12 05:24 PM
Lew Rockwell
Alfred Nobel wanted his peace prize to be award to those who have worked "for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses," but since he left its administration to a bunch of politicians in his will, men who are bloodthirsty by nature, the prize went wrong early on, with awards to such war criminals as Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Henry Kissinger, Barack Obama, and other mass murderers followed in their turn. So giving it to the EU, subservient province of the US empire in all its wars, is in this tradition.
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Posted by kdervin on 10/15/12 04:35 PM
Nobody said it better than the Three Stooges: Peace! Peace! We want peace! A piece of this and a piece of that.
Click to view link
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Posted by Summer on 10/15/12 03:46 PM
@ eddd7 :Europe is the poster child of political correctness run amuck. "Tolerating" (the race card on steroids) islam, the most intolerant ideology on the planet by far...
And so called Christian nations have been spreading their democracy so peacefully?! What "tolerant" colonialists!
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Posted by GeordnungbefehL on 10/14/12 02:06 PM
WDIA in Memphis was playing rythmn and blus since 1945. I used to ride my bike down with a friend on Saturday mornings whose father was the General Manager. BB King was a DJ as was Rufus Thomas who walked the dog all over town.And heose daugher had a mosntor hit before Mowton could grab its collective self togther."Gee Whiz".
Dewey Phillips ,a white DJ, had a show "Red, Hot and Blue" on the Memphis airways since 1949 on white owned WHBQ. He had the temerity to lock his studio on a Sauturady night and play Little Richard's Tutti Frutti an ied that scared the world and which led to the white controlled music mavens have Pat Boone cover it a week later . You Tube that.
And who cares about Topanga Canyon?
Every white Englishman looking for a claim to be a rediscoverer of black blues is lying. Before Clapton, Ten Years After The Stones et. al. [ amd Hendrix a bonafide no leg 101 vet himself admistted this at Monetery in 1967] The Stones etc etc- ther was Canned Heat playing " "Bad Trouble.
That should have got a Peace Prze and be used on evry M-3 Abrams when it next pivots to find a home for its brothers in arms next assault.
What does it all mean? This was, as Mike Herr wrote, the mantra of every G2 officer from MACV down to the rifel squad in Vietnam ,Laos and Cambodia 1962-70. When something did worlk it was broken on the wheel of politicians like Frank Church who field stripped and denuded Bill Colby in open televised hearings on 7 May 1970 when Phoenix was blown.
No problema. The GVN currency plates were stolen and Tan Sa Nhut was awash with enough paper to wipe & cover every ass fom Saefloat to Ban Me Thuot to any one flying downtown.
Is this what Greenspan and Bernanke mean by qualitative easing?
I hear banjoes playing Die Fahne Hoch/Die Rehen fest geschlossen.. . Zum letzten Mal wird Sturmalarm geblassen.
Get the kids off the street.
And before anyone gets lathered up about Horst Wessel recall that in his first appreance at Salzburg after the war and evry time he played there until he died Herbert Von Karajan used to warm up the orchestra with the lied. Rotte Kapelaa ? Schwarze Kaeplle? Who cares ? It was an Imperial Navy Song in its firts iteration.
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Posted by Col on 10/14/12 05:12 AM
I stopped taking notice of the Nobel prize years ago, even before Yasser Arafat, simply because the award has been degraded to the status of a kindergarten "Gold Star", being awarded to those that play well with others.
In the grand scheme of things it is of no consequence what so ever.
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Posted by ramsam on 10/14/12 01:42 AM
The Nobel prize is a meaningless award in the fields of economics, literature and peace since it is given on the basis of 'political correctness' and very heavily favours statists, collectivists and mystics. Can you imagine Ayn Rand getting a nobel for literature or Reisman for economics.
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Posted by Danny B on 10/13/12 10:10 PM
Hmmm, just to clear up a misconception, it wasn't Laurel Canyon. Laurel Canyon is very narrow and all residential. The Mamas and Papas sung 1230
"Young Girls are coming to the Canyon"
Click to view link
They lived in Laurel canyon but, that wasn't where the action was ... unless you were Sharon Tate.
Topanga Canyon was where all the action was. You can still go to the Inn of the Seventh Ray which has an excellent New Age book store.
Click to view link
Everybody went to Topanga Canyon.
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"Its most famous landmark is probably the Topanga Corral which used to be at 2034 Topanga Cyn. It will be forever remembered as a place were Canned Heat, Spirit and Spanky and Our Gang honed their skills. It is rumored that Jim Morrison wrote Roadhouse Blues about this place.
Canned Heat Co-founder Alan 'Blind Owl' Wilson whose falsetto can be heard in their great hit "Going up the Country" died on the hill behind fellow band member Bob Hite's Topanga Canyon home on Sept. 3, 1970. He was 27.
Other famous past and current residents include: Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Randy California, Don Felder, John Densmore, Mick Fleetwood, Lowell George, Taj Mahal, Billy Preston and Marvin Gaye.
The Canyon overflowed with tie-dye and crystals, dreds and pot.
Neil Young would play the Corral and you couldn't get through the traffic to save your life.
"The Topanga Corral was a nightclub that featured an eclectic mix of performers, including then Topanga locals Canned Heat, Spirit, Little Feat, Spanky and Our Gang, Taj Mahal, Emmylou Harris, Etta James, Neil Young, and Crazy Horse, Geronimo Black,John Lee Hooker and many others"
Click to view link
The Canyon was also a big part of all the surf music. Charles Manson sponged off Brian Wilson until he finally kicked him out.
Then, there were the festivals like the Renaissance Faire, the Pumpkin Festival, etc
I sat next to Emmylou Harris and had no idea who she was. My Alma Mater, Chatsworth High had the Doors in concert and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Creedence was always somewhere close by.
I constantly rode my 305 Honda through the canyon to the beach. You had to be careful who you passed in the canyon. The Hells Angels didn't like "rice burners" passing them.
The 60s and 70s were a great time in the Canyon. Most of that is gone. The hippies moved off to Oregon where it is easier to be irresponsible. There is little left of the old magic.
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Topanga Canyon is still a great place to hike when the waves are too flat to surf Zuma.
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Posted by Danny B on 10/13/12 09:20 PM
"Switzerland reckons because of the Euro crisis there will be violent unrest in Europe and wants to reinforce the defense at the country's borders ... "
Let your mind wander through history and fantasy and try to conjecture just what the situation in Europe would have to be for an attempted land invasion of Switzerland.
Dunno,
Here's a very funny movie filmed in Switzerland;
Click to view link Silver Bears.
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Posted by GeordnungbefehL on 10/13/12 08:43 PM
Mit der dummheit kaempfen die Gotter selbst vergebens ...
Reply from The Daily Bell
"Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
Against stupidity the very gods
Themselves contend in vain ..."
- Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805), usually known as Friedrich Schiller, was a German poet, historian, dramatist, and playwright.
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Posted by Chemist on 10/13/12 07:32 PM
There is a petition to nominate someone who actually deserves it (Ron Paul) over at Click to view link. At least it's drawing attention to the irony.
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Posted by earnst on 10/13/12 06:35 PM
The crazed woman at Bilderberg shouting "We haf machine gunz" was Norwegian. Perhaps the inbreeding is finally catching up with the elite?
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Posted by steveg on 10/13/12 06:32 PM
I believe this "award" is an attempt to give legitimacy to an "undemocratic" union. The New World Order is alive and well.
See links below:
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Posted by Danny B on 10/13/12 06:09 PM
The Swiss don't seem to be thinking peaceful thoughts;
Click to view link
Reply from The Daily Bell
"Switzerland reckons because of the Euro crisis there will be violent unrest in Europe and wants to reinforce the defense at the country's borders ... "
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Posted by lejano on 10/13/12 05:57 PM
It may well be that the commitee has grown old, intermarried, senile and/or finally has turned inward on itself. Their choices , at least up through the 1930s and until approximately the early to mid 1960s, (about the time dropping acid jumped the pond), followed the rules of logic and were, at least, understandably laudable. I'm sure they will continue on, however, until their problem ... if that's what it is, eventually becomes more obvious to those of us who wait and watch ...
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Posted by Danny B on 10/13/12 05:46 PM
Did you ever get the feeling that certain people are out of touch? QUOTE;
"Jeff Berwick: I've met a few of those power elite types. They are almost always older and have no clue about computers. I had to teach a Bilderberg attendee - and granted, the Bilderbergs are mostly the house servants - how to use a computer mouse years ago"
Click to view link
Could these dumb schmucks actually think that they are fooling somebody?
The Peace Prize has been a very sick joke since 1978 when Menachan Begin, the butcher of Deir Yassan "won" it. Later followed by Arafat the billionaire who played political football with the Palestinians rather than work for a solution. Then, there's the Kenyan butcher.
Honorable mention goes to;
Teddy Roosevelt
Woodrow Wilson
No big surprise. Mt Rushmore is a tribute to warmongering presidents.
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Posted by ccuthbert on 10/13/12 05:31 PM
Oh Anthony, PLEASE. I am incredibly disappointed in you. How can you point to the time of the politicization of the Nobel Peace prize to 1994? I thought you were a student of history. Has Henry the K completely slipped your mind? And no mention of the support role of the various EU countries in US wars or of the destruction of Lybia. Methinks you're getting lazy...
Reply from The Daily Bell
The Nobel itself has pretty much been an elite promotion since inception - not only in areas of "peace" but also science, etc. The column briefly mentioned two examples. They were never intended to be definitive or exclusive ...
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Posted by gordon on 10/13/12 05:10 PM
The sickening sight of barosso standing at the podium smirking gleefully after the announcement says it all. Arafat, gore, obama !! what are those doddering old fools in Norway smoking?
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Posted by navmagdale on 10/13/12 04:55 PM
dimitri did you forget the war in former Yugoslavia? The European countries participated also killing innocent people under the shield of NATO.
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Posted by Kriss Robin on 10/13/12 04:41 PM
Maybe its that "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND" mentality. Lets give a reward for stupidity, after all those presiding over the running of the EU have seemed to miss common Sense out of the equation, deliberately or not, lol. Roll on 1984 Georgie Boy, lol. This mentality is key to its implosion.
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