global civil society

[T]he "global community" didn't honor the American President; five Norwegians did.

Glenn Greenwald, "Accusing Obama critics of 'standing with the terrorists,'" October 10, 2009

It's not clear to me (the committee) speaks for the world. It speaks for five Norwegians.

William Kristol, Fox News Sunday, October 11, 2009. 

I'm not sure what scares me more:  Kristol and Greenwald agreeing with each other... or me agreeing with both of them at the same time. 

If you're wondering why it took me a few hours before choosing to blog about Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Price award.... well, it took me that long to stop laughing. 

Honestly, I'm not laughing at Obama.  I'm laughing at the morons on the Norwegian Nobel Committee who made this decision to cheapen an already devalued prize.

Seriously, let's imagine the deliberations that led to this decision:

CHAIR:  Guys?  Guys!!  It's 2 AM and we've got an award to give later today!  What are we gonna do?    We can't use Jimmy Carter again -- he was our emergency winner the last time we were stumped!  If we don't do this right, we'll have less credibility than the Grammys!!

MEMBER A (clearly drunk):  Hey, why not Neil Patrick Harris?  For bringing peace to.... umm.....  Hollywood awards shows?! 

MEMBER B:  Remember when Time's Man of the Year was... you?  Why can't we do something like that?  You know, say that the Peace Prize goes to all peace-loving people. 

CHAIR:  No f%$&ing way.  What do you want me to do, hold up a mirror to the cameras when I say who won?  And you know how many idiots would ask for their take of the prize money? 

MEMBER A:  Seriously, Neil Patrick Harris is awesome.  Any of you checked out Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog? 

MEMBER B:  Hey, how about that Iranian guy who won the election but got screwed by the mullahs?  He seemed pretty peaceful.

CHAIR:  Sorry, no dice.  We used up our Iranian quota this decade with Shirin Ebadi.   

MEMBER B:  That Zimbabwean guy?   

CHAIR:  If you can't remember his name, then he's not getting the award. 

MEMBER C:  Did you read how the Oscars will have, like, 10 nominees for Best Picture this year?  Why not give this to all 20 members of the G-20? 

CHAIR:  Doesn't the G-20 actually have more than 20 members?  Can anyone name them all?

Silence....

MEMBER A:  And How I Met Your Mother is definitely underrated as a sitcom.  NPH owns that show.   

MEMBER C:  Hugh Jackman was People's Sexiest Man Alive this year.  Why not double up on him, like we did with Al Gore? 

MEMBER A:  Get serious, man.  Wolverine sucked!!

MEMBER B:  Hey, here's a crazy thought... why not Barack Obama? 

General laughter and merriment.

CHAIR:  How exactly are we going to justify the award?  Jesus, even Jimmy Carter had done some actual peacemaking when we gave it to him.  What are we going to say?  "Barack Obama has succeeded brilliantly in not acting like George W. Bush in His First Term?"

MEMBER B:  C'mon... the guy just lost the Olympics bid even after flying all the way to Copenhagen. 

MEMBER A:  Hey, how about Taylor Swift?  We could guarantee Kanye wasn't in the audience. 

MEMBER B:  Look, maybe it will give Obama a boost.  With the massive prestige that the Nobel Peace Prize now carries in the United States because of our brilliant recent selections, maybe this will help get health care reform passed.  This award would so put conservatives on the defensive!

[General nodding around the table.]

MEMBER A:  Fine, no one else likes Neil Patrick Harris at this table, I get that.  What about Roman Polanski?  That would make a statement.   

CHAIR (looks at watch):  Fine, whatever, we're way past deadline.  (Points at MEMBER B).  Write up the explanation.  (Points at MEMBER A).  Contact Neil Patrick Harris and put him on "standby" in case Obama can't make it for the acceptance speech. 

MEMBER B (scribbling furiously):  Hmmm....how's this?  "Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened."

CHAIR:  Hmmm.... no actual achievements other than Not Being George W. Bush in His First Term, but it sure sounds good!  OK, we're adjourned 

MEMBER C (looking through nomination letters):  I can't believe that professor from Tufts nominated Salma Hayek again.  Doesn't he know that this is a serious award?!   

In semi-seriousness -- Bono got robbed, man.

UPDATE:  I do think Obama's response was to the hubbub was pretty good.  Again, I'm really not laughing at him -- I'm laughing at the Nobel Committee's decision-making.  At this point in time, there were a lot of other, more deserving candidates. 

Giving the award to Obama is kind of like giving that junior professor the Teacher of the Year award -- it dooms their chances for tenure. 

Earlier this week Facebook VP of Global Communications, Marketing, and Public Policy Elliott Schrage gave an interview to cfr.org that's worth reading.  As you would expect, Schrage was pretty upbeat about the use of social networking technologies as a means for political action: 

So, do I see Facebook as being an incredibly valuable tool for public diplomacy? Absolutely.

Some of the most interesting uses of Facebook have been for the purpose of social action, which is essentially political action, whether it's an extraordinary rallying of support by the Colombian community around the world to protest the terrorist activities of FARC-the Colombian militants-or whether it's students protesting bank fees and bank charges in Great Britain, or whether it's the Obama presidential campaign generating almost six million supporters on Facebook as a means of communicating his policies, his positions, and his campaign activities....

Frankly speaking, some of our greater successes are in countries where the means of distributing information have not been easy or without friction. So, for example, in Colombia we have remarkable market penetration. In Indonesia we have among our fastest-growing market share. Chile, I believe we have close to 50 percent of the online population now on Facebook. In Europe we're doing extremely well. And in the Middle East we've achieved very interesting degrees of penetration, and in fact just recently announced that we are launching right-to-left languages in addition to left-to-right languages.

There's an obvious PR element to Schrage's spiel, but then again, let's wander over to the Financial Times' Najmeh Bozorgmehr on how Facebook is being used in Iran's presidential elections: 

As they struggle to compete against an Iranian president who enjoys the support of a powerful state apparatus, leading candidates in June’s election are resorting to Facebook to spread their messages....

“We are using new technologies because they have the capacity to be multiplied by people themselves who can forward Bluetooth, e-mails and text messages and invite more supporters on Facebook,” said Behzad Mortazavi, who is in charge of Mr Moussavi’s campaign committee.

He said the wireless technology of Bluetooth would be used “extensively” to send out speeches and photo slideshows. The supporters of Mr Moussavi have opened about 20 Facebook pages calling on others to vote for him and have attracted about 7,500 members so far.

Although Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s opponents on Facebook are not yet campaigning against his re-election, their posts may help strengthen the anti-incumbent mood among the elite.

A page called “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad” has so far attracted more than 35,000 members, the highest number in all pages related to the president.

Yeah, the thing about that Facebook page is: 

• 35,000 is still pretty small;
• The site has been up for 18 months as an experiment to see of Ahmadinejad is lss popular that George W. Bush.  So far, the numbers don't bear this out;
• The site is administered by someone from Sweden;
• I'm willing to bet that not everyone who's joined is registered to vote in Iran (they all do seem to be quite attractive, however).

Question to readers:  is the power of social networking real or exaggerated in "countries where the means of distributing information have not been easy or without friction"?