Conservatives and Al Gore's Nobel

[marmar]

from OurFuture.org:



Conservatives and Al Gore's Nobel
Submitted by Rick Perlstein on October 15, 2007 - 8:39am.


For conservatives, everything is political war. Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize, reflecting the entire world's consensus that man-made climate change is a crisis? For conservatives, that means: time to discredit the Nobel Peace Prize itself as a pathetic racket—or, as National Review's Steven F. Hayward puts it, "a once-prestigious award," now suffering its "final debasement."

It raises an interesting question. When did conservatives first begin questioning the prestige of the Nobel Peace Prize? Steve Benen and James Fallows point out that would be 1964, when the Prize was won by Martin Luther King. Fallows reaches back to his youthful recollection of how his hometown, which went for Goldwater over Johnson, considered the notion of Dr. King as Nobel-worthy as something merely to sneer at. Looking in on my favorite research tool, Proquest Historical Newspapers, I found documentation for Fallows' recollection—like this letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune (whose flagship right-wing editorial page's reaction to the honor of an American winning the Peace Prize that year was to simply ignore it):


Chicago, Oct. 19—For the Rev. Martin L. King to win the Nobel peace prize for 1964 is, in my opinion, a major fraud foisted on real peace-loving people throughout the world. —Thomas Biety.


The Los Angeles Times's editorial page was rather conservative, but nonetheless editorialized respectfully about Dr. King, praising his conviction that "nonviolent protest is the most effective weapon." But their piece concluded with an implication that all their conservative readership might not all prove so magnanimous: "Those who would deface his splendid work by mob action," they wrote, "or by any other unlawful means, would do well to ponder his wise words."


William F. Buckley columnized on King's prize with a nastily condescending open letter to the winner (from, apparently, white America itself), headlined, "Dr. King's Position Is Now So High It Includes Responsibility":


We don't expect that,in return for the Establishment's favor, you will become an Uncle Tom. But we do expect that for so long as we agree that you will be the reliquary for the world's inter-racial conscience, you will say something relevant tnow and then about the persecution of people even if they aren't Negroes. Is it a deal, Reverend?

If so, maybe we can go a long way together to make a better world. If not, kindly remember that the Nobel Committee is not a court of canonization, that it is merely one of those riches of the world which in your sermons you have so rightly disdained as of ephemeral importance.


As I wrote in an essay last January (subscription only; email me at [e-mail] and I'll email you a copy), conservatives "hated King's doctrines. Hating them was one of the litmus tests of conservatism." Prominent conservatives even went so far as to blame him for his own death—for didn't the doctrine of "civil disobedience" mean you got to choose the laws you followed? Strom Thurmond: "e are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case." Ronald Reagan: this was just the sort of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break." Civil rights? That was just a front. A have here in front of me a slim 1965 pamphlet c0-authored by Lee Edwards, a present-day fellow at the Heritage Foundation, entitled Behind the Civil Rights Mask, whose cover features King's face as a mask, hiding their true goal: "revolution."

Once, the conservative litmus test was despising Martin Luther King. Now, it's despising Al Gore. History, once more, will indict them.

http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/conservatives_and_al_gores_nobel?tx=3

[riqster]

1. Try saying this phrase with a straight face:

..."George W Bush, Nobel Laureate".

:rofl:

I didn't make it past his first name.

[Aviation Pro]

3. I can't even think it without howling in laughter....

....

[Aviation Pro]

2. Of course conservatives hated Dr. King's Nobel....

...afterall, they love slavery.

Can anyone name a conservative of this ilk who has ever won the award?

[malaise]

4. It's simple for conservatives

Anything or anyone who challenges their world view is attacked.
Good read.

[Atman]

5. American "Conservatives" are an embarrassment to the world.

Being an embarrassment to the world means being an embarrassment to the people of the world, does it not? By obvious extension, "the people of the world" refers to humans, correct? So, perhaps I shouldn't have toned down my original subject line of "Conservatives" are an embarrassment to the human race."

Hearing their desperate attacks on Al Gore and now the Nobel Peace Prize itself, I'm genuinely embarrassed that these people represent our nation to the world. All I can think of are playground taunts and the type of make-up-the-rules-as-you-go-along arguments which used to break out during a game of street stickball. Conservatives are like an entire class of coddled Momma's boys, either so used to getting their way or bitter and angry that they didn't get their way enough.

By virtue of their status as ersatz grownups, though, they're more dangerous, more insidious than tantrum-throwing children. The lesson they never learned was "how to get along." Only now, when they storm out of family game night after having tossed the "Game of Life" board into the air, there are real consequences for millions of Americans. It's gets exponentially worse when they fling the Risk board across the room, as we're now seeing.

Having one of their bogeymen "win" something is seen by these people to be as bad as themselves having "lost" something, a scism part and parcel to black and white thinking (excuse the Pun, Dr. King). Getting along it seen as weakness. Ironically, perhaps, these prime candidates for the Bad News Bears T-Ball team view "getting along" as, well...like a t-ball game. There can be no winners if there are no losers. Someone's got to lose, just so long as it's not them. They won't allow it to be them. So they resort to this kind of sand kicking and one-upsmanship.

It's sad, pathetic behavior. It is modern American Conservatism.

.

[JitterbugPerfume]

6. A prophet is not despised, but in his own country

and among his own kin,and them who are of the same household

signed,Jesus

from the book of Matthew( even an athiest can quote scripture)