Nobel or Ignoble Peace Prize: Pandering to Politicians

No Country for Grumpy Old Men

For some time now, Donald Trump has been jockeying, whining, cajoling, sniveling, hinting, demanding, droning, and grousing — all towards his deserving to be awarded this (in my view) rather questionable honour.

Like a grotesque puppy jostling for position at the fullest teat, he shoved himself at the prize.

What the fly on the wall might have heard:

Whaddaya gotta do around here to get a gold medal? Nobody in history has done more for peace than I have. I shot Venezuelan boats out of international waters and killed some bad guys, well only eleven - or maybe 21 - but they were brown or Hispanic. I made up stuff about Haitians eating white people’s dogs and cats, but sadly only a few Haitians were harmed in the aftermath. I wiped out all kinds of humanitarian aid going overseas — some children may have starved as a result, but that was in Myanmar, so who cares? I defended some “very fine people” in Charlottesville — you know, those White Supremacists who drove over a woke protester and killed her. I tirelessly provided arms, money and munitions to Israel to continue their genocide in Gaza. I forgave and pardoned those “tourists” who, on January 6th stormed the capital threatening to hang my Vice President. I stopped the war with Azer-Adger-ugh-baijan...Albania — no, not Albania? Who cares? I stopped it, wherever it was. I’m sending in the military for training by using American cities. I took a cognitive test and I had a perfect score. And one of the doctors said he's almost never seen a perfect score. I had a perfect score. I got the highest score. It was beautiful.

Alas, despite the incessant pandering of his sycophants, and embarrassingly delusional self-promotion, he was not awarded the scepter. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Oh, the pain.

Even Putin (as we all know, a true authority on peace) commiserated: "this award has lost credibility"

Here’s a thought: maybe Trump can claim the vote was stolen and hawk “Stop the Peace Steal” merchandise. And MAGA loyalists can storm Oslo City Hall while wearing their little red hats and faux-Viking helmets.

Peace American Style

In any case, things can be fixed with a Pax Americana.

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Georgia) has a plan:

 He deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. And that's why I'm introducing a resolution (on Oct. 10) that will honor him with the Nobel Peace Prize.

A Made-in-America one. Tariff exempt.

Well, wait just a gosh-darn minute there, Buddy (no relation to Jimmy Carter, who did win the award). You have every reason to grouse. Had Trump won the laurel leaf, he would have stood in fellowship with several dubious winners.

A Questionable History

Between 1901 and 2024 the Peace Prize has been handed out to 111 individuals and 28 organizations.

In this Olympic pandering event, the United States (or rather US citizens) has won gold with 22 awards, the UK a distant silver with twelve awards, and modest “neutral” Switzerland gets the bronze at eleven awards. All other nations were “also-rans” with single digit wins.

Let’s focus on the 22 Americans upon whom was bestowed this sometimes tin-plated hollow crown.

Eighteen were men, and a three were women… No, wait, of the three women, two “shared” the prize, so really the score is eighteen to two.

All twenty-two recipients were white, excepting three black men.

All were relatively slim and trim, so Trump would be a stand-out in this respect. Most could speak eloquently, were well educated, were not convicted sex offenders or felons, didn’t (at least publicly) pepper their speeches with curses and vulgarities. Again, in many regards, Trump would break some moral ground in the Nobel Prize area — no small feat given the shadiness of several predecessors.

It should be noted that a Nobel Prize winner is designated as a “laureate”, a term denoting eminence in matters of military prowess or achievements. Such irony.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Winner is…

In chronological order:

Theodore Roosevelt (1906)

The “We couldn’t Have Done it Without You Award”:

for his role in bringing to an end the bloody war recently waged between two of the world's great powers, Japan and Russia.

Sure… OK… yes, clearly single-handedly. There are so many issues around Roosevelt, I don’t even know where to start. So I won’t.

Elihu Root (1912)

The “You want money? Then make war. Oh, and ladies, don’t be Unnatural. Oh, and War is Good and Let’s Go Kill Something Award”:

for bringing about better understanding between the countries of North and South America and initiating important arbitration agreements between the United States and other countries.

Elihu once said that the Russians “are sincere, kindly, good people but confused and dazed” and made their continuing participation in the war a condition of receiving financial support. He was quite clear, stating disdainfully in Pidgin English “no fight, no loans”.

An outspoken opponent to Women’s Suffrage and Feminism in general, he worked tirelessly to ensure that a woman’s right to vote would not be included in the State constitution.

He fervently believed that voting was not a “natural right”; to his mind it was “a means of government”. He was convinced that women were different than men, which further bolstered his belief that they shouldn’t vote. He had this to say:

Woman rules today by the sweet and noble influences of her character. Put woman into the arena of conflict and she abandons these great weapons which control the world, and she takes into her hands, feeble and nerveless for strife, weapons with which she is unfamiliar and which she is unable to wield. Woman in strife becomes hard, harsh, unlovable, repulsive; as far removed from that gentle creature to whom we all owe allegiance and to whom we confess submission, as the heaven is removed from the earth.

He also enjoyed killing animals (euphemistically called “big game”), a vicious passion he shared with an earlier Nobel Prize recipient, Theodore Roosevelt.

After World War I, he became the president of the National Security League, where he continued to address his followers about the sanctity of war and those pesky, unfeminine and misguided suffragists.

Charles G. Dawes (1925)

The “Don’t Look for the Money Now” Award:

…for his crucial role in bringing about the Dawes Plan…

(which set up Germany for Nazism, but who knew then?)

During U.S. Senate hearings (February 1921) that were investigating questionable war expenditures (in order words, where in God’s green earth did all that money go?), Dawes got all hot under the collar and cried:

Hell and Maria, we weren't trying to keep a set of books over there, we were trying to win a war!

Indeed.

Nicholas Murray Butler (1931)

The “I’m Going Home and Taking My Toys with Me” Award”, OR the “Fascists are Stupendous” Award:

…for assiduous effort to revive the ideal of peace and to rekindle the spirit of peace in their own nation and in the whole of mankind.

Ten years after winning the Nobel prize, the Pulitzer jury chose to honour "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway. Butler, by now the “ex-officio” head of the Pulitzer board, found Hemingway’s work offensive, and ensured the board did not award any prize in literature that year.

In the 1920s (to be fair, this was before Butler was crowned a beacon of peace), he was a big-time fan of Benito Mussolini, comparing him to Oliver Cromwell, and went on record praising:

 …the stupendous improvement which Fascism has brought…

Then the Nazi’s began burning books. So in November 1933, shortly after the fires were lit, Butler enthusiastically welcomed to America the German ambassador, Hans Luther. At the same time, Butler refused to appear in public with a noted German dissident, Robert Burke, when the latter visited an American university.

He then made sure that Robert Burke, Columbia University, now class president of 1938, be permanently expelled for having led an anti-Nazi protest on campus. Butler was silent and complicit with regard to the Nazi regime until Kristallnacht. I guess the optics were not so good anymore.

Corell Hull (1945)

The “Jews are Ruffians and American Women are Prostitutes” Award, OR the “Better They Die in a Concentration Camp then Defile American Shores” Award:

for his indefatigable work for international understanding and his pivotal role in establishing the United Nations.

In 1937, Mayor La Guardia of New York City stated that brown-shirted Nazis were emblematic of a “climax to a chamber of horrors” at the soon to be held World’s Fair. The Nazi government press (think Karoline Levitt of yesteryear), called La Guardia a “Jewish Ruffian”, and a criminal who accepted bribes from Jews and Communists.

Hull then sent a sad little letter to Berlin, expressing regret for “intemperate comments on both sides” (shades of Charlottesville, but that was faraway in the future). The Nazis responded by saying that American women behaved like prostitutes.

Hull then wielded his mighty pen, wrote to Germany with some insipid protest. Berlin provided an “explanation” on the moral depravity of American woman and did not apologize. Being a peaceful man, Hull said nothing more on the issue. Besides, it was just women they were talking about.

Perhaps the preceding paragraphs show only trivial idiosyncrasies. But what comes next is far from small.

In 1939, Hull made his feelings known to Roosevelt when a German ocean liner, the SS St. Louis, sought to land in the United States with 936 Jews seeking asylum from Germany. Hull’s (and Roosevelt’s) decision was to send them all back, just in time for the start of the Holocaust. Historians believe that 254 of those turned away were murdered by the Nazis.

But Hull was not done. Some dastardly Portuguese were bringing in more refugees and Hull was actively stopping that. In September of 1940, wily Eleanore Roosevelt (the president’s wife) finagled entrance visas for Jewish refuges arriving on a Portuguese ship, the SS Quanza, and consequently on September 11 (another 9/11, what are the odds?) many disembarked in Virginia.

Not to be outdone by some woman, when American Jews tried raising money (around the same time as the Portuguese incident) to prevent the mass murder of Romanian Jews, Hull was right there to block it.

Hull put out a statement explaining the technicalities of it:

In wartime, in order to send money out of the United States, two government agencies have to sign a simple release…

At the time, Hull ran the State Department and Henry Morgenthau ran the Treasury. Morgenthau signed right away, but Hull dithered and stalled, so more Jews continued to die in the Transnistria camps.

1940 was a vexing year for Hull. A Jewish group in the US filed an official complaint against the State Department, citing discriminatory policies. Well, Hull wasn't going to knuckle under to that! He promptly issued orders to every United States consulate worldwide: they were forbidden to issue any visas to Jews.

At the same time, a Jewish congressman asked Roosevelt for permission to allow 20,000 Jewish children to escape from Europe to the United States. Roosevelt ignored him, and no doubt Hull nodded his head in approval of the snub.

Henry Kissinger (1973)

The “Staunch Supporter of Authoritarian Regimes” Award:

…for jointly having negotiated a cease fire in Vietnam in 1973.

Kissinger was a busy guy. He was associated with the bombing of Cambodia, involved in the 1971 coup d’etats in Bolivia and Chile, supported Argentina’s military junta and its so-called “Dirty War”. He provided aid for the invasion of East Timor and of Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War, and he was perfectly comfortable with the Bangladesh genocide.

Given the civilian death toll his policies caused, and because of his direct role in helping the United States to support several authoritarian regimes, he was accused of having committed war crimes.

Barack Obama (2009)

The “When an Arab stops Snitching on Other Arabs Award”, OR the “Let’s Pick on Small Arab Countries Who Have No Money” Award:

…for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.

While in office, in contrast to his good looks and suave eloquence, Obama expanded U.S. air strikes; he really liked using special forces and encouraged “cooperation” by relying heavily on other governments’ militaries. Why do your own dirty work when you can outsource and eloquently call it “cooperation”? Also, when Libya stopped snitching on fellow Arab nations… well, we know how that ended in 2011 with the overthrow of Gaddafi.

2011 was a good year for Obama. With a Peace Prize glinting on the mantelpiece, he ordered a drone strike in Yemen which killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen on Yemeni soil. So Obama has the distinction of ordering the first American strike that targeted an American citizen — due process be damned.

Later, the teenage son and young daughter of al-Awalki were both killed in separate U.S. military actions, but Obama claimed that it wasn’t done on purpose. It was, you know… just one — well, maybe two — of those wacky drone coincidences. Could happen to anyone.

Come 2015, Obama cut a deal between the US forces and the Saudis to support their military interventions in Yemen. This resulted in an American and Saudi “Joint Planning Cell”. Then, in 2016, he put forth a series of arms deals worth a dazzling $115 billion. I guess it's a "go big or go home" thing.

While in office he increased military cooperation with Israel. His unstinting affection for the Israeli cause was proven in 2011, when the US vetoed a Security Council resolution that condemned Israeli settlements in Palestine. No other country in the WORLD took the same position. No wonder Obama has been distinctly silent on what has happened in Gaza over the last two years. Guilt maybe? Complicity? His comments - verbatim:

To me, being pro-Israel and pro-Jewish is part and parcel with the values that I've been fighting for since I was politically conscious and started getting involved in politics.

Where Were You on October 10, 2025?

It has a ring to it, doesn't it? 10/10. Ten/ten. Like a drumbeat. Like a goosestep.

A day to remember, like when man landed on the moon, when Kennedy was assassinated, or when the twin towers fell, on 10/10 the world shifted a little bit.

The day that the Nobel Prize didn't pander to politicians, the day they sprouted a conscience…

No. Hold on. Oops. Didn't happen.

Or at least a window of possible hope narrowed through an inconvenient moral squint.

Maria Corina Machado, a prominent Venezuelan politician and activist has won. One of the first things she did upon being awarded the prize was to extend obsequious appreciation and giddy gratitude to Donald Trump, having cited the latter as being a "visionary". She is touted as being a devoted promoter of "popular capitalism" and in her push to privatize Venezuelan state-run enterprises has become the darling of American corporate interests. She is on record as having praised the use of force in the deposition of Maduro. With regard to the war in Gaza, she is pro-Israel. She expressed her support in Trump's recent killing of her own Venezuelan citizens without due process.

Doesn't seem very peaceful to me.

Still, South American politics are, to say the least, complicated. And I cannot pretend any solid knowledge in the field. Perhaps Machado is truly a worthy individual.

Perhaps she is only a little tarnished. Or a lot tarnished. Perhaps she personifies the new feminine politician (she has said that Margaret Thatcher was an inspiration) where a woman can be every bit as violent, morally ugly, and grasping as any male. No girlish vapourings from her.

Perhaps Machado is a great choice for the judges:

• A woman.... check
• A South American.... check
• A politician.... check
• A capitalist.... check
• In traditionally womanly fashion, praises a strongman.... check

A Comfortable and Shame-Filled Foxhole

So I'm sad. The Pollyanna in me wants things to be fair, and just, and decent. I want the institutions that profess to be beacons of what another writer called "moral clarity" to actually have morals.

But we don't live in that kind of world. Perhaps we never did and perhaps we never will. And the stain of moral turpitude continues its spread over us all.

It has been said that there are no atheists in foxholes.

Where was I on 10/10? Where were you? In which comfortable foxholes did we cower?

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