Obama and the Peace Prize, And Other Rifts on Violence

   I wonder how our President can accept the peace prize and then cite an argument for just war?! I personally feel his decision to increase troops was morally bankrupt. A more peaceful approach would have been to refuse the prize.

President Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize. Image Credit: The White House (2009)

   Now, our prez did close Guantanamo, and he has laid down a progressive plan for peace, but I think the two wars he has inherited make it a prickly predicament.
   Is Obama a warmonger? Does he feel a little aggressive push is necessary to end the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is violence ever necessary?
   His decision to enact violence is not necessarily unethical. Even Gandhi and King understood violence is necessary to enact change. Violence, in some order, can bring about peace - even the non-violent violence that encouraged civil rights and brought down the monarchy in India was, in my opinion, ethical. The violence of WWII took the lives of millions of more civilians than any other war in this past century. Democracy does not deplore that war.
   If our president wants to make a change in our world through violence, he needs to enact violence in other sectors to secure peace:
   Reasons for "just war" in other regions besides the Middle East:
1. Enact violence with blue chip companies who ruthlessly rape citizens of their monetary worth.

2. Enact violence in our educational system that worries more about the status quo rather than genuinely educating American kids.

3. Enact violence with millionaires who refuse to cede over their superfluous, gratuitous capital to fund libraries, schools, transit systems, and healthcare.

4. Enact violence with bureaucratic red tape that encourages local ignorance.

5. Enact violence by raising tuition costs in state universities.

6. Enact violence with corporations like Wal-Mart that squash unions and payout poor wages to clerks and menial labor positions.

7. Enact violence with a country that glorifies personal wealth over genuine civic gain.

8. Enact violence with an ideology that prefers to inundate the masses with irrelevancy so we are inevitably separated from significance.

9. Enact violence with sexual mores that say physical touch is ALWAYS suspect. Our sexual code of conduct is bisected and two-faced.

10. Enact violence with family values that devoids kids of an authentic voice and instead create automatons.

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