Barack Obama : THE FAKE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE INTERNET EXHIBITION

Nobel Prize Acceptance Text, as prepared for delivery and provided by the White House

"Business as Usual."

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, citizens of America, and citizens of the world:

Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Compared to some of the giants of history who have
received this prize – Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela – my accomplishments are slight.

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Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Third Reich and the Axis powers,
Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.
Business as Usual.

Moreover, wars between nations have increasingly given way to wars within nations. The resurgence
of ethnic or sectarian conflicts; the growth of secessionist movements, insurgencies, and failed states; have increasingly trapped civilians in unending chaos. In today’s wars, many more civilians are killed than soldiers; the seeds of future conflict are sewn, economies are wrecked, civil societies torn asunder, refugees amassed, and children scarred.

Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Martin Luther King Business as Usual. Business as Usual. “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and
more complicated ones.” Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.Business as Usual. Business as Usual.Business as Usual. Business as Usual.Business as Usual. Business as Usual.

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Business as Usual. Business as Usual. 9/11 attacks, Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Afghanistan,Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.
Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Saddam Hussein Business as Usual.
Kuwait Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.

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Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Afghanistan. Business as Usual.
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We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor
those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.

Business as Usual. Business as Usual. to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a
world without them. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.

Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. genocide in Darfur; systematic rape in Congo; or repression in Burma
Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.

Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. For peace is not
merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and
dignity of every individual can truly be lasting.

And yet all too often, these words are ignored. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.

Business as Usual. peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.

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Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Third, a just peace includes not only civil and political rights
– it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that
security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water,
or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

And that is why helping farmers feed their own people – or nations educate their children and care
for the sick – is not mere charity. It is also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.

As the world grows smaller, you might think it would be easier for human beings to recognize how similar we are; to understand that we all basically want the same things; that we all hope for the chance to live out our lives with some measure of happiness and fulfillment for ourselves and our families.

And yet, given the dizzying pace of globalization, and the cultural leveling of modernity, it should come as no surprise that people fear the loss of what they cherish about their particular identities – their race, their tribe, and perhaps most powerfully their religion. In some places, this fear has led to conflict. At times, it even feels like we are moving backwards. We see it in Middle East, as the conflict between Arabs and Jews seems to harden. We see it in nations that are torn asunder by tribal lines.

For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint – no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one’s own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but the purpose of faith – for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. We are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.

For if we lose that faith – if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace – then we lose what is best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him.”

Let us live by their example. We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual. Business as Usual.