I&I Editorial
The Nobel committee has cheapened its Peace Prize by handing it to some questionable, even asinine, recipients in the last few decades. It will reach a new low if, as some are predicting, and even hoping, it chooses Greta Thunberg this week.
The British Daily Mail reported last week that, according to oddsmakers, she โis the one to beatโ for the prize, which carries a $930,000 payout. It is not, however, a sure thing. Gretaโs โyouth, outspokenness and confrontational approach,โ says Reuters, โpresent challenging questions for the Norwegian Nobel Committee.โ
Given the committeeโs record, though, it would be naive to think it wonโt do the most foolish thing it possibly could. Letโs reacquaint ourselves with a few of the recent undeserving winners of the Nobel Peace Prize:
- Yasser Arafat (1994), a known terrorist who shared the award with Israelis Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, and continued to order terrorist attacks after receiving the prize.
- Barack Obama (2009), โhonoredโ just months after he took office, whose top accomplishments then, and remain to this day, nothing more than getting himself elected to public offices.
- Al Gore (2007), a charlatan and hypocrite who has ridden climate hysterics to the peaks of wealth and acclaim.
- And Rigoberta Menchu Tum (1992), the Guatemalan who claimed to be an advocate for the poor but whose โโachievementsโ cited by the Nobel committeeโ were โlater revealed to haveโ been largely made up, says the British Telegraph.
Her prospects were apparently boosted by her recent United Nations โspeech.โ Evidently being granted a bully pulpit in front of that bodyโs general assembly, then using it to hector, nag, scowl, and in general behave with the entitlement mindset of a โspoiled bratโ screeching โhow dare youโ multiple times is an impressive feat.
While basking in the shining approval of puerile adults, Greta accused those in attendance, and all who were unfortunate enough to hear her, of having โstolen my dreams and my childhoodโ with โempty words.โ This is a teen who has grown up in a time and place of privilege, prosperity, and peace that no generation has never seen. Yet, with “grown up” heads nodding as if sheโs an oracle of the age, she has the gall to accuse someone โ who? โ of stealing the hope and expectations of her youth.
If her dreams and childhood have been stolen, they werenโt taken by the companies that have for decades provided cheap energy that is the backbone of economic growth, and the consumers whose lives are immeasurably improved by their products. She has been robbed by her adult handlers, who have both indulged her idiosyncrasies and immaturity, and used her as a mascot for their pet cause.
Making the sorry spectacle of Greta-mania even more irksome is the fact that the narrative sheโs pushing is dubious at best. At worst, it’s an outright fraud, kept alive by scientists with political agendas, militant activists, and willing dupes.
Though it might seem so, the committee that hands out the Nobel Peace Prize isnโt a collection of virtue-signaling, popularity-craving, shallow teenagers. Itโs made of virtue-signaling, popularity-craving, shallow adults who have in the past acted like teenagers, and in the near future might be shredding their final and already fraying thread of credibility by awarding a rude and insolent child a participation trophy.
โ Written by I&I Editorial Board
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nobel prizes became meaningless when the peace prize was awarded to odumbo for doing nothing. awarding one to the teenage whiner will only continue their new tradition of awarding prizes to useless individuals.
odumbo for doing nothing Sure he did, he went on to kill with impunity. He even said “I’ m really good at killing people”
Greta has done nothing for world peace, and instead is fomenting ageism and conflict between adults who’ve scared, and abused, kids into thinking the world will end and they’ll die from global warming. Yep, this is madness. We don’t need another unpleasant scold berating us for the harm some adults have caused them with their global warming hysterics.
Scoldilocks for the WIN!
The nobel committe seems to be left wing idiots, (sorry to be redundant) when they nominate Obama, Arafart, and the global warming idiots. By the way, the Nobel was supposed to be for excellence in science, and there is NO EVIDENCE to support the idea that Climate change is either man caused, or a danger to man. If you think, there was an ice age until 11000 years ago, I wonder it the people then were worried because the world was warming, and the ice was melting.
And, Al Gore’s movie is complete propaganda, without a hint of evidence, and the hockey stick graft is proof of one thing, nothing, it demonstrates a co incidence, and if you had any training in the scientific method, you would recognize this statement. Co incidence is not evidence of anything but a co incidence. Evidence would be something about the mechanisms which demonstrates cause and effect, which is not propaganda and speculation. Ever heard of the little ice age, or the medieval warm period, those were times the average temp in the areass where it was measured, and recorded, mostly in Europe, demonstrated a much larger shift in the average temperature, which occurred over several hundred yeats, than has been experienced or will be experienced in the world for the next several hundred years, it the warming proceeds at the current rate.
And, if you want to stop CO2 production, just use nuclear power, no CO2, All of the antinuclear power bullshit comes for the scientifically ignorant and emotionally backward, who relate to the world as if their religious views on temperature are the same as scientifically based reality.
Too bad that Nobels have lowered their standard so much that it has become meaningless in recent years. Yes there have been some good awards along the way even in Peace but there is such an obvious bias by the committee. Personally I felt John Paul II, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, & Bono should have won by now. They have moved a world either with words or donations or other contributions. But the Stockholm committee despises democracy & entrepeneurship. Clearly we saw Arafat never lost his spots, Gore-well it had nothing to do with peace, & Obama was unaccomplished.
Greta is a by-product of mass hysteria. Why anyone should listen to or take lessons from a 16 year old who has not lived, has no job, never paid taxes or done anything meaningful in her life except rant and spread falsehoods around the world is beyond my comprehension. But then I\ve never understood the UN – silent when it needs to speak, frozen when it needs to act, blind to human suffering and genocide. Yet it has time for this privileged, delusional kid.