On the Obama Peace Prize

Now we have to change all our words around.

I never thought of Peace as a word that was moveable. All our words have been shifted by Consumerism and Militarism. Democracy is gone, America and Freedom are gone. Peace always stayed there in one place.

Peace patiently waited for us to notice the best things about ourselves. Peace always stayed with us. Peace was ignored by the governments and the powerful but it was still there -- the monument that is made of the sky and the wind, our memories of a face and our loving touch. But now we have to change our words around. They have taken the word Peace and we'll have to make up a new word, a secret signal.

Predator drones will be released tonight destroying the word we always depended on. The flying bomb will go out over the villages, sailing over the sleeping children and prayers and friends stopping for a laugh. The bombs will float and hesitate and change direction from computers in Florida and Missouri and the soldiers at the computers will know that Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And so they will be consumers of a war that is now being marketed as a product named Peace.

So -- it has come to this. War has finally captured Peace.

 

 

Follow Reverend Billy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/revbillytalen

Comments

[laotzunietzsche]

This Is the First Part of a Two Part Post
Read Them Both, or, Read Neither.
There is no middle Ground

This, I'm sure, sounds like a paradoxical position.
However, as someone who is greatly moved by the words of Lao Tzu, who wrote, The Way of Life, and yet, is an atheist, I embrace paradox.
I agree with every word you said. In fact, they eerily echo the ones I wrote in a poem at the commencement of the Second Gulf War. called, "Saying is Now Doing",
And, yet I, still, feel Obama's winning the award was justified.
How can that be?
it is so because 'peace' started referencing war, long ago.
We saw it happen when 'cold war', for many years, began to denote "no war".
It took a new turn during the Korean war when 'peace' just referred to a pause in hostilities.
It took on new force during the Vietnam War, when we destroyed villages to save them.
Then, it was culminated by Bush, the Younger with the doctrine of preemptive strike.
We waged war to create peace by its very waging. Not to bring peace about. Not, even, to ensure it. But, because waging war, in itself, now, meant 'peace'.
The ultimate gory retch of the post-modern era. Saying so is what made things so. Not by any sort of doing.
We, in our own minds, had now usurped God. The word came, first.
We said it was good. And, so, it was good.

[laotzunietzsche]

This is the Second of a Two Part Post.
If you Have Not Read the First, Do Not Read This

The election of Obama, the actions of Obama, the awarding of the Peace Prize to Obama, which has nothing to do with the actions of Obama is the culmination of all that.
The last of one, though, is the first of another. The post-modern era has ended. 911, the second Iraq war, are the last acts on its grand stage. An era has ended.
The world knows this. We all know this. We feel the rattling in our bones. So, we quiver in fear and confusion, not knowing what will follow.
Obama, by being a potent force who calms us wins the award because he exists and lets us face tomorrow.

We said it was good. And, so, it was good

[iralarry]

Interesting commentary. War has always been a modality promoted as a way to promote peace. Kill the aggressors so we can go back to watching TV and eating our McDonald's. And isn't it a wonderful oxymoron?

This is what I think of President Obama's receipt and acceptance of the NPP.

I am curiously ambiguous about this most prestigious award given to my president for whom I eagerly voted. My first and most honest reaction was, "Why President Obama?" Might even have been his own initial reaction. I am convinced he did not expect it nor revel in it either.

Now I have come to better appreciate the reasoning for the Prize committees decision. Mr. President, you are a beacon of hope, an inspiration for change. Your heart is in the right place. Just a few of the cliches apropos to this situation. Peace is a most elusive prize, much more so than the actual award itself. Wouldn’t you agree?

When he in fact, in time, provide more than just the inspiration to attain peace, but serve as its instrument for the actual change which needs to come, this award will mean more to him and the people of the world than it does right now.

[HamletsMill]

Reverend Billy,

I must say that I am in need of spiritual guidance about this. Of course, you being a man of the cloth (!) know the ancient Scripture: "In THAT day they will cry Peace! Peace! when there IS no peace." President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for, essentially, not being President George Bush in a certain psychological apace marker in people's global mental world. The world has been traumatized for unfathomable years by even knowing that such a human being as GWB existed in such a position of power, that this prize may be some kind of Stockholm Syndrome acting out? In that sense it is poignant. A hopeful wish from some vast collective unconscious of millions. I do not pretend to understand it yet. Our country is completely owned by the Military Industrial and Mercenary No Bid Contractor Complex with the Five Protected New York Banks. It is fearsome. I pray for the President at all times. But the real work is with us to rise up and take our country back. From that beacon that is now upon us from every horizon, I salute you! I have always been a big fan! I always seek your spiritual council in the back of my soul. Perhaps your white suit was inherited from the man in my avatar of long ago. I think he would enjoy your Message!

Best wishes to you Reverend Billy! I shall avidly follow your campaign in NYC very closely!