Oct. 16, 2009 I The Clarion
f continued from p. 3
current events in this country knows how
lost a cause that has often been.
American reason and justice have been
inexact and halting, painfully and some
times sinfully lacking.
And anyone minding the delirious
nightmare of legislation working its way
inch-by-painstaking inch through congress
and the spiraling tenor of pseudo-news
commentary knows the glaring and many
shortcomings of our system.
To those of us convinced of climate
change and of what must be done, of the
various other moral imperatives involved
in the healthcare mire, the denials of equal
rights to our soldiers, our various complex
international commitments, et cetera, the
pace of action and reform is ruinous and
Opinion -
maddening.
But despite the many frustrating imper
fections, many around the world rightly
recognize the vital changes taking place.
Bodies like the United Nations and
NATO, the G8 and G20 exist and function
only insofar as we and other nations support
and invest in them.
These are organizations, by the way, on
which we will one day have to rely for rea
son and equity in a changing world in which
we cease to be the only super-power
And our new administration’s com
mitments to international relationships,
conventions and estabhshments have illus
trated critical leadership in supporting, and
thereby immediately raising the mandate
and worth of these institutions.
It is through such international coopera
tion, and only so that we will be able to
deal with the staggering issues facing our
world, including climate change and peace
in the Middle East, both cited in the Nobel
Page 5
announcement, not to mention poverty,
famine and skyrocketing population growth
which violently afflict our world.
And though it is easy for our imperfect
leaders to lose track of or ignore such vast
and amorphous problems in their petty
arguments and campaigns, and perhaps
because of this, the Nobel Committee has
gone all in.
We have to realize that the stakes are
terminal. We can change our world, but
the chances are finite, and the time to act
is short.
“It could be too late to respond [to
Obama’s leadership] three years from
now,” said Nobel Committee member
Thorbjoem Jagland.
Mr Obama’s prize is not deserved for his
present achievements, but is warranted by
the present circumstances, and by the hope
and promise his leadership and methods of
reason and intelhgent engagement offer an
eager world.
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