If you want peace, prepare for war

Everyone has 20 - 20 hindsight it has been said.
-and hence I have waited until after the event before I open my mouth.
However, freedom of speech is far from isolated to hindsight or correctness.

Freedom of speech is also a freedom with all the glamour and charm even for the most stupid idiot in our society.
And oh yes, welcome to Norway, where the freedom to be a super-idiot is prized way beyond any ideals of aspiring to heights of enlightment.
This is a country where the freedom of the people was born from the blood of the few that fought in the second world war, for the freedom of others. This is our freedom, that few today care to cast a lazy thought over, as we scream for our rights to sucking some form of subsidy from the oil sector.

We don't really want to work for it ourselves, and we don't really care too much about the people that do.
We enjoy the freedom to be stupid, while we cash our subsidised cheques that stems from this income, we in a heartbeat turn around and scream again about the CO2 of the world.

While this can be said for an alarming amount of our little country, the opposite can also be said.
There are also many that enjoy the same freedom of choice to be better. This can also be said in close to any direction anyone cares to reflect over.

It is thanks to this freedom, won on a battle field, that we today have this freedom to be as stupid or smart as we choose.

Personally I thought it was good that Obama used time to focus on the problems and controversial issues related to war and peace.
It is a dilema that the people of Norway have forgotten, and genereally do not understand.

The protestors made this point extremely clear under the Nobel prize decision.
They seem to lack the understanding of war and the difference. Which is normal for a distanced view.

Obama made it very clear, that the second World War would not have been won over Hitler through passivity.
It takes an idiot of global proportions to even entertain that thought!
Then again, one could argue that had Hitler won the war, then it would have been a form of peace too. The thoughts that this presents are probably far from reachable for the general passifists that enjoy the freedom of being short-sighted, but to say the so-called freedom of any oppressive system is actually freedom is pretty ridiculous.
The burning of all books etc, and extreme censorship would have been a form of life and a normal perspective.
Seeing homosexuals killed in Youngstorget just for loving someone of the wrong sex could too be a form of freedom for everyone else.
Seeing a Jew in the streets would not be something to worry about either. Yes, of course the Muslims would also have been a thing of the past. And Africa would have been moved off to the dark-side of the moon.
Oh yes, your freedom of speech is ok, as long as you say what they allow.
True, Mandela had total freedom within his cell confinement too, if you are stupid enough to see things this way.

To explain for a passifist that you actually cannot talk or discuss certain issues with the likes of Hitler is not easy.
They simply have not witnessed it, and do not have the brain activity required to envision it's harsh reality.

Think
I mean, let's say a passifist from Norway goes back in time to the Second World War.
Your country has been overthrown by Hitlers men etc, and you are witnessing your hometown being killed. You witness your friends and perhaps even your very own child or parents being killed in the streets before your eyes.
Please explain to me, how would you now view a protest march in England or USA, that is trying to prevent the military from these countries coming to help you!
Even if you gladly enjoy a round of nazi torture followed by a bullet or hanging, what about everyone else?
That protest march against military aid is actually an indirect vote FOR the oppressor, and is a clear statement that they too have little to no problems in you and yours getting killed.
Sure, now in 2009 you can freely discuss this point, while you stick a Grandiosa in your face.

Being a passifist is fine, and sometimes it is the problem.

I am myself a half-breed, born and raised in South west London under the same times as punks and skins were getting themselves established! And I know that to even attempt discussion in such circumstances is again, closely definable as stupid.

I do not attempt to understand or know of the problems in Afghanistan.
But I do know the diffence between push and shove. And I have learned that while you may turn the other cheak on the first shove, when the third approaches and your life is at risk, you truly shove back with avengance.

For a passifist looking at this final shove, with little or no understanding, it will of course seem like a clear cut case of violence, and not defence.
For the vast majority in Norway have not experienced this form of reality, and do not understand that violence is in fact sometimes necessary. Some people do not understand.
Once a violent episode is brought to their doorstep, then the tone changes. Fast!

The mere sight of someone being hurt by others is enough for many of us others to try to stop the abuse.
I doubt a passifist would stand by and watch a gang rape of a child!
They are passifists as long as their freedom is carefully looked after by others.
The human race is a natural social mammal, and as such is naturally non-violent. But as I have explained before, this sometimes goes wrong.

Close to the whole of Norway reacts strongly to any national form of violence.
They will have little problems in life imprisonment for someone that has killed a child, or even molested a child - and some may even mumble death penalty wishing someone would hear it.
But they will later the same day defend the oppressors of a nation on the other side of the planet that has tortured and killed children, women and men in the thousands, and will not understand that some people cannot and will not allow such catastrophic offenses to continue.

Had Obama been a Norwegian politician, we would probably be thinking that his next act would be to enforce the toll booth situation surrounding Oslo, and maybe even higher the price by NOK 5,- despite his previous promises, straight after he had been talking to some pseudo-psychic or healer on the telephone.
Luckily for the world, such politicians are a comedy act largely homegrown and well controlled in Norway (Norway = small country comparable in many ways to Alabama).

The American President does not have this luxury of saying one thing and then doing something completely different like the SV politicians of Norway. The USA President must be in a completely different league!
Of course, a total and absolute direction is never as absolute as it may sound, and direction change according to realities are enevitable.
However, even Bush had better resolve than the average Norwegian politician.

Push goes to shove, and the President MUST be able to shove, harder and with more accuracy than the rest of planet Earth combined.

Travel
People in Norway have written in diverse blogs or comments about Obama coming over with an assortment of artillary fit for a common war zone and capable of emitting larger CO2 debri than close to the entire work-force of Norway do in a year.
Norway has little to no comprehension of the scale differences involved.
The President of USA is NOT the same as the Norwegian King or any of the Norwegian representatives.
With a position as such, the risks are parallel.

Michael Jackson would come over with an huge array of trucks with all sorts of diverse effects.
Even Peter Gabriel had 7 trailers with diverse music stuff on his trip over in the 80's.

The President of the USA is not just a joy trip. His security team is securring a president that is on a long term mission, and zero risk is the only option.

What makes Obama so popular?
The thing about Obama is not that he is coloured. Despite many coloured in USA that kept saying that this is historic for a black to be President.
Despite the fact that this is true, it still had little or nothing to do with this vote for him to become President.
He was the best candidate, and for once, the best candidate won. At least, this is my belief.

If he was green or any other colour that would still not really be an argument worth my time.
Obama is far from a war veteran.
He has little track-record in general.
Prior to becoming President he often refused to talk in terms of absolute answers.
Obama was as stable as a bank, ops, can't say that anymore - but you get the point.
Hillary Clinton just seemed to be a semi-hysteric house wife, with eyes about to pop out of her head. Yeah, it looked like she was on a serious speed-trip. Good to see her eyes have pulled back a bit since the election!
Macain on the other hand was a lot more direct, but America did not really want yet another President looking for a war. And it truly seemed that war was Macains angle.

Obama brings something we all need from time to time.
He brings the feeling of hope.
And that is exactly what any doctor would prescribe after 8 years of Bush.

Whether or not he actually lives up to the ideals and standards we all (the world) have set out for him is secondary.
We have laid out a path, and he is walking it with precision, and he does not relent or go astray.

In the wake of this hope, the result is close to enevitable that the contageous results will effect us all. Even if it is directly from him, or actually from ourselves!
For most of the time, we just needed the right words or the right conditions or settings, for us to also do the right things.
We know the direction, but sometimes it is easier when some big mouthed American points it out.
In this case, he just happens to be polite.

Thorbjørn Jagland stood for the entertainment value for this prize though!
His english was just so whacky, that it truly punched the wind out of me.
Apart from this amazing use of english, I will agree with Jagland that this was a good choice for once.