That Nobel Screams: 'Out of Afghanistan & Go for Solartopia!'

Above the din, the Nobel message screams: "U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN, & GO FOR SOLARTOPIA!"

It's now up to US to use that Nobel to win that dual prize.

This
award never went to two of the most critical peacemakers of the 20th
Century: Mahatma Gandhi, who pioneered the successful use of mass
non-violence; and Eleanor Roosevelt, feminist godmother of the New
Deal's social programs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It
has not gone (yet) to the embattled Burmese freedom fighter Aung San
Suu Kyi. Or to Cesar Chavez, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Thich Nhat Hanh, Paul XIII
and so many more.

But yes it did to Barack Obama. Why?

Right
now we have no choice but to defer to the committee that took the
plunge. Chairman Thorbjoern Jagland explained that "It could be too
late to respond three years from now. It is now we have an opportunity
to respond---all of us."

Respond to what?

"We couldn't get around these deep changes that are taking place" under Obama.

ARE taking place? Or WILL take place? Or MIGHT take place if somebody plays this card right.

Say you're a committee member desperate for peace and a solution to climate chaos.

Maybe you're a gambler. You remember giving the Prize to Desmond Tutu for fighting apartheid before it was abolished.

You
say: "This new kid talks a great game. He's made a green and peaceful
nod or two. But the generals and fossil/nukers are at his throat.

"Let's box him in. Let's hang this Nobel around his neck....and over his head. Let's DARE him to do right."

Or,
as Jagland has actually put it, the award will give Obama
"encouragement" and "support in producing concrete results" for the
"vision of a nuclear-free world" among other things.

Now let's
say you're an American activist. You're desperate to stop the worst
mistake America could make since Lyndon Johnson's 1965 escalation of
the Vietnam War---a murderous, suicidal escalation of the war in
Afghanistan.

We all know this would shred the last fiber of a
failing society, utterly decimating any chance for an American moral,
ecological or economic recovery.

But the long knives of Pentagon junta are out in force.

We
also know without a massive Solartopian push for renewables and
efficiency, the global climate is doomed. Nuclear power must be
excluded and fossil fuels phased out.

Now this glib young prez,
who must stand up to the generals and King CONG (Coal, Oil, Nukes, Gas)
is given--or shall we say, stuck with---the Nobel Prize.

Pasted
to his back now are the words of Alfred Nobel lauding "the person who
shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the
nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the
formation and spreading of peace congresses."

Obama rightly
says he does not deserve "to be in the company of so many of the
transformative figures who've been honored by this prize."

But
the Committee, which cited Afghanistan, climate change and nuclear
disarmament in its decision, is clearly betting this marker might help
him---FORCE him---to get there.

Obama could, of course, use it as cover---Henry Kissinger style---to do the wrong things.

But this gift is not to Obama. It's to US, as a tool to MAKE him go where we must.

The spotlight has now been amped. The focus is on Aghanistan and a green-powered, nuke-free Earth.

The
Nobel is a mandate---a sacred trust---to push this president into the
pantheon with Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, not to mention
Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi.

Ready or not, we have our opening to make Barack Obama rise to their standard.