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SOUR GRAPES
10/10/2009
My mother used to say "Oh honey, that's just sour grapes." My father called it jealousy.
Whenever other kids would tease me about my good grades, or my athletic abilities in grade school and high school, that's how my parents comforted me. And they didn't just apply it to me.
Whenever they saw one group of people criticizing other people who had achieved something, or gotten some recognition, my mom would simply say "sour grapes." My dad would say "it's just jealousy."
I looked up the definition of "sour grapes" today, just to see if it fit the situation to which I am now going to apply it, and it does. Sour grapes is defined as the "denial of the desirability of something after one has found out that it cannot be reached or acquired." In other words, if a young woman aspires to be, but can't be Miss America, she might say "Who wants that stupid old crown anyway? It's just for airheads with breast implants and lots of makeup."
Ever since Barack Obama has been on the political stage I have seen both sour grapes and jealousy. Last Friday, when he was awarded (he didn't "win" anything, he didn't even compete) the Nobel Prize for Peace, the sour grapes were everywhere. Mom would have surely had something to say about it. But mom isn't here anymore, so I will.
I don't mind-read, so I don't know what was in the minds of those who awarded President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, but I do know that the awarding of the prize signals the feelings of the world outside the bubble that has become America. Past and present world leaders from Nicolas Sarkozy of France, to Mikhail Gorbachev of Russia, all praised the choice as well as the young president and actually laid out the reasons Obama deserved the prize.
Sarkozy said the prize "sets the seal on America's return to the heart of all the world's people."
Arnold Schwarzenegger said: "The president has consistently shown that he is committed to reaching out to other nations and positioning America to once again be the global leader for peace and prosperity."
Kofi Annan said: "In an increasingly challenging and volatile world, President Obama has given a sense of hope and optimism to millions around the world."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it was a "wonderful recognition of someone who has already made such an impact on our planet with regard to the Muslim world, nuclear disarmament, climate change and, to some extent, the Middle East."
Shimon Peres said that Obama's leadership is "making peace a reality and making it a key issue on the agenda, which must be realized."
Mikhail Gorbachev said "I am happy. What Obama did during his presidency is a big signal — he gave hope. In these hard times, people who are capable of taking responsibility, who have a vision, commitment and political will, should be supported."
Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said: "I cannot think of anyone today more deserving of this honor ... President Obama has provided outstanding leadership on moving towards a world free of nuclear weapons."
So there you have it. The world leaders have told us why Obama, only nine months in office as President of the United States, is deserving of this honor. The conservatives say he has done nothing. World leaders differ. They say Obama has brought hope to the world. They say he has dedicated himself to nuclear disarmament and peace. They point to his commitment to diplomacy rather than war and his restoration of America's place as leader of the world.
Those are not small things. They are huge, existential things. They tell us how important America and American leadership is to the future of this planet. They tell us how much the entire world depends on American vision.
The rest of the world does not want an America that sees everyone and everything in black and white terms. They do not want an America that says, as did former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, that all we care about are American interests. They want and indeed need an America that is committed to peace around the world, an America that takes the lead in abolishing nuclear weapons, an America that knows how to conduct diplomacy and not just how to drop bombs.
Barack Obama represents and stands for all of these things. In his nine months in office he has banned torture, promised to close Guantanamo and restore the rule of law to those who were beyond its reach. He has started the withdrawal from Iraq and is searching for a new way in Afghanistan. He has reached out to the warring parties in the Middle East, and succeeded in getting the U.N. Security Council to vote unanimously to work towards nuclear disarmament of all nations.
In the minds of liberals like me, he hasn't done enough, of course. We want universal health care. We want regulation of banks and Wall Street so the middle class will never again be swindled by them. We want an end to the war in Afghanistan. We want more funding for education and medical research. But we have great hope in Obama, and we have observed throughout his entire campaign, that he bides his time, lays down exquisite plans, and then moves at just the right time. We believe he will slowly build momentum, as he is doing with health care reform, and then strike when he has the advantage.
We liberals see something else about Obama, though, that makes him deserving of such a prestigious prize. Think about what this one man has done, just by getting elected. He has overcome over 300 years of prejudice, discrimination and racism that arose out of a system of slavery and inequality, to become the first black president of the United States. He overcame something many thought would take at least 100 more years to overcome. He was able to convince a majority of Americans that he was not only equal to any white man, but that he in fact was more capable than many of them, that he could lead the people, protect them, and govern them. I can think of nothing more conducive to peace than overcoming tribalism, division, and prejudice in one's own country.
Barack Obama did this by winning an election, but it was not just any election. He defeated a white man, a war hero, a dignified, distinguished, older and more experienced man to become the most powerful man in the world, the President of the United States. And he did this not by proving he was tougher than his opponent, or that he was going to promote conservative policies, but that he was going to take America in a completely new direction.
For nearly eight years, many of us in this country, and a vast majority of people around the world, were disheartened and quite honestly, afraid. We saw the warmongering, the black and white mentality, the "with us or against us" mantra, the arrogance, the go it alone mindset of the conservative Bush Cheney regime.
Here in this country, we saw the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We saw people losing health care and jobs and homes. We saw regulations tossed out the window. We saw fear used as a political tool to win elections.
We saw a complete neglect of the Israeli Palestinian problem. We saw an increased dependence on foreign oil, a refusal to take global warming seriously and an utter disregard for the environment.
Then Barack Obama came along.
He wasn't afraid to take on Hillary Clinton and the Clinton machine. He wasn't afraid to take on John McCain. He wasn't afraid to speak up against the Iraq War, even though every previous critic of the war was called a "traitor" or a "defeatocrat." (Republicans have such cute names they call people.) In standing up and saying what many had been thinking, but had not had the courage to say, he gave us hope. In reaching out to the world even before he was elected, and signaling that he would end the policies of George W. Bush, policies that a majority of Americans had turned against, policies that the rest of the world always hated, he gave all of us hope.
American conservatives, especially the ones on the far right, cannot see this. Of course, their presidents have not received Nobel Peace Prizes and they are jealous. While they can understand why the two Bush presidents did not get one (each built his legacy on wars in the Middle East) they do not understand why Reagan did not. After all, in conservative mythology, Reagan defeated Communism single-handedly.
The other factor, of course, is that they despise Obama for a number of reasons. He won the election, fair and square (though they try mightily to blame "Acorn" and accuse Obama of having been born in Kenya to try to deligitimize the election). He is on the political left. He has deprived them of power. And, for some at least, he is not the right color.
But really, they hate Obama because the world loves him. That is why during the campaign they thought it was effective to label him a "celebrity." They hate him because his policies and his ideas are resonating with so many people who want peace, and disarmament, and diplomacy around the world, and equality and prosperity for all here at home. And so they call him unworthy, and say he has accomplished nothing. Of course, at the same time they say he is doing too much, that he is Hitler or that he is turning America into a socialist nation. Wow! If he had really done all those things, he certainly couldn’t be accused of doing "nothing" could he?
Conservatives are flailing around, hating Obama because he is popular with the people, because he defeated them, and because he just might accomplish something that would make the world (and not a few wealthy people like themselves) better off. And so they want him to fail, even if it means the country fails. They are the Tanya Hardings of politics. They may not take a baseball bat to Obama's knees, but they will rejoice when he loses and attack him when he wins. This is why they rejoiced last week when Obama's appearance in Copenhagen did not win the Olympics for his home town of Chicago, and attacked the Nobel committee this week when the president was awarded the Peace Prize.
As my mother would say, "Sour Grapes!"
All content © 2005 outragedcitizen.com
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