RANT: FOR THE NOBELIST OF MEN?

  

IT WOULD BE NICE if there was a Nobel Prize for participation—for just showing up, an “Also Ran” or “Everybody’s A Winner!” trophy that Donald Trump could receive. I don’t think he'd be satisfied with a medallion like the Nobel Peace Prize (NPP). Make it more like an “Emmy” or an “Oscar”, or a “Noble” business trophy that President Trump can put on his desk in the Oval Office. Have it stand out, be a bit of an eye catcher. Maybe something like a Briars Cup. Something classy, anyway. Because the American president is hell-bent on getting an award. Does he deserve an NPP, though? Nuh-uh. If he’d jettisoned the Ukraine clusterfuk on Day One of his presidency by stopping the flow of weapons and taxpayer dollars into Zelensky’s money pit, then there might be a case made for his getting 2025’s Nobel Peace Prize.* ['Cept, see "Gaza" 634 words👇. Ed.] And while Trump seems to genuinely want to get out of the Ukraine mess, he has strong headwinds to push through. First of all, his advisors, staff, his cabinet and most politicians on the Hill, are hawkish on Russia due to residual hatred of the USSR from Cold War days, or else they’re die-hard “Russia-gaters” who’ve been psy-opted into believing Russia’s President Putin is the horned and goat-footed Satan of our nightmares.

The summit in Alaska the last week, while it was short on “deals” as Trump so often wants to make, nevertheless had several important upsides:

👉First, Russia and the United States, as represented by each country’s president, met face-to-face; at least they’re talking.

👉Trump seems to have come around to Putin’s view that a temporary ceasefire—what Zelensky and most European heads of state want—is a non-starter. Why should Russia, that is winning decisively, stop their advance and give Ukraine time to re-group and re-arm?  Such a deal only delays the inevitable Russian victory with more death and destruction, going forward. A “peace treaty”, on the other hand, is a comprehensive settlement to the conflict that hammers out a deal whereby Russia and Ukraine, as well as Europe, can have their security guaranteed. Something along the Austrian or Swiss model of non-aligned neutrality. It would require a good deal of diplomatic wrangling, but it is far better than establishing a “frozen conflict”, like the one in place between North and South Korea since 1953, which is an armistice, a truce, not a real peace. Unresolved issues there have caused conflict, fear, and mistrust between the two nations ever since. Without a peace treaty, Ukraine would remain an existential threat to Russia, especially if what remains of Ukraine rearms and bids for NATO membership where it could become a base for conventional and even nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at Moscow and points eastward. Which would be unacceptable for Russia.(Think of China placing a ballistic missile site in Windsor, Ontario and how the Americans would react. They'd level the place ASAP, right? Is Russia not allowed to feel the same way about Ukraine becoming a NATO member and thus a more dangerous neighbour? 

BTW, NATO has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Uggh! Gag me with a spoon! 😝 The alliance is a paper tiger well past its sell by date. It does more harm than good and promotes conflict where diplomacy is urgently needed. Please, NATO, go sit in the corner and dissolve!

 

 👉Trump may have come away with a better appreciation of why Russia sees Ukraine as a threat to its peace and security. Which would be helpful if he is going to wind down American support for the Zelensky regime. SINCE the summit, the American president has cut off direct sales and donations of weapons to Ukraine, saying he will sell armaments to the Europeans and if they want to donate or sell them to Ukraine, that’s up to them. He’s opening up a bit of daylight between the United States and Ukraine, and at the same time placating hardliners in his administration by allowing US armaments to still flow there, if by a more circuitous route.¹

 

👉Trump said his three-hour meeting with Putin in Anchorage involved a wide-ranging discussion and he made it clear that America and Russia have concerns between them other than Ukraine. More talks and negotiations are in order. Putin invited Trump to visit Moscow in the near future. I would like to see negotiations around limiting nuclear proliferation and revising nuclear treaties, such as New Start, and the INF treaty. We will have to see how this all shakes out over the coming weeks and months.

 

So, should President Trump get the Nobel Peace Prize if his efforts in making a “deal" between Russia and Ukraine bear fruit? No he should not. His unwavering support of Israel and its depredations in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian lands is unconscionable, clearly marking him as complicit in the Jewish state's genocidal crimes there. But, I’d be happy to see him receive the Nobel Peace Prize as long as he’s in prison in the Hague for war crimes. He can keep his gold-plated Nobel medallion in his cell or use it to buy extra snacks in the prison commissary. 😁

  

ALFRED NOBEL'S WILL stipulates that the Peace Prize award should go "to the person (or group) who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Trump has a long row to hoe, I’m sure you'll agree.³  

 

 CHEERS JAKE. _______________________________

 

* One suggestion would be for Trump and Obama to time-share the NPP Obama won in 2009 for ending the “combat” mission in Iraq (mostly), though there are American troops there to this day. And the American military got out of Afghanistan only during Joe Biden’s presidency in that FUBAR of a withdrawal in 2021. So, while there was troop downsizing during Obama’s presidency, he didn’t end the “forever wars”, and he got America involved in Syria, to boot, in 2013. And let's not forget Libya! Finally, recall how Obama was given the moniker of “Drone Warrior-in-Chief” for his extensive use of the then-new remote-killing tech used to blow up Taliban chieftains and wedding parties. I personally feel Obama should give his medal back. He didn’t deserve one then and Donald Trump doesn’t deserve one now.

 

1. Trump has said the U.S. will allow the sale of longer-range missiles to Ukraine but they will need U.S.-monitored systems to fire and guide their flights to targets inside Russia, including Crimea. This is worrying and hopefully it means that Trump is doing what he always does, i.e., ‘playing both sides of the street’. The missiles may never arrive in Ukraine—apparently, they're still in production—or perhaps the launch codes will be withheld by the Americans. I hope this is just Trump dicking around like he always does, looking for some leverage with the Russians. It's a tentative WWIII scenario, but we'll have to wait and see. 

 

2. At the time of the Committee's creation, Norway and Sweden were in a loose confederation, which is why the award ceremonies are divided between Oslo and Stockholm. Nobel was a Swede.

 

3. And Trump winning by hook or by crook, would suggest to me a politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize process, and another example of how our institutions of governance, of law, finance, international relations, and humanitarian outreach, have been corrupted, co-opted by vested interests, and, in many cases, are no longer fit for purpose.

 

FUN FACTS: Each year the Nobel Committee selects six winners in the following categories: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine or Physiology, Literature,   Economic Sciences (since 1901), and Peace.

💣Nobel died in 1896 leaving his vast fortune (he invented "dynamite") to fund in perpetuity the Nobel Prize Committee and the nearly one-million dollar award each of the six laureate takes home. 

Five of the awards are presented through Swedish institutions. The sixth, the Nobel Peace Prize, is awarded in Oslo Norway.²  For the first five awards, the  Committee gathers information and consults experts, beginning in September of the previous year, to decide who will be the laureates the following year.

 

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE process is different from the other Nobels: Between October and January the Committee opens up its nominations and announcement cycle so authorized institutions and individuals can put forward their candidate for consideration. Instead of the Committee compiling a list of nominees itself, the NPP is thrown open to members of legislative bodies, international courts, university professors, etc., for nomination of possible candidates. In February the  Committee compiles a short list of roughly twenty or so candidates and over the course of several months one candidate is chosen for the prestigious award. Note: Institutions and organizations can also be nominated, for example the International Criminal Court and the government of South Africa are two 2025 nominees. Trump is nominated a couple of times for peace deals he more or less arranged, one notably between Israel and Hamas at the start of his second term. (It was a temporary ceasefire.) He was nominated for the award by the arch war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, and in a cringe-worthy exchange at the White House in early July, the Israeli PM gave Trump a copy of the letter he sent to the Nobel Committee nominating the American president. [After watching that, I needed to wash out my eyes. Ed.] 

OTHER nominees include everyone's favourite genocidal grandmother, Daniella Weiss, a rabid and racist Israeli settler who's just salivating on getting to remake Gaza into a Zionist paradise. My choice for this year's Nobel Peace Prize would be Francesca Albanese,  "for her work as the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and her tremendous and courageous work to highlight the destruction of Gaza by Israel." You go girl!👍

 

INTERESTING INFO: The "short list" of about thirty candidates, supposedly representing those names compiled by the Nobel Committee from 224 individuals and 94 organizations nominated for the 2025 NPP, is speculation. The Committee does not give out information on the nominees or the short list, nor does it divulge its selection process. Those names found in Wikipedia and elsewhere have been publicized by the nominators for one reason or another, and in some cases demanded by nominees. Currently, the Committee is debating on the short list and there is no telling who is on or off the list, and who remains in contention. BTW, the winner of the NPP is often controversial, one reason why no details of the Committee's vetting process may be revealed for fifty years when all the Committee members are dead and buried in their graves! 

The Committee will make an announcement in October and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony will take place in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. It's interesting that during his lifetime, Nobel was known as "the merchant of death" for his work developing explosive munitions used widely in militaries throughout the world to this day. 

But, who knows? Maybe a leopard can change its spots?

 

 

    "EVERYONE'S A WINNER!"

 

 

      

RANT: RUB-A-SUB-SUB: THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS!

  

 

WE ALL KNOW how hurtful name calling can be. It makes the recipient cry, or it can fire them up to punch back with words or fists. And mean tweets? We’ve all had them (well, I haven’t, but no matter). They’re like digital gauntlets thrown down or, better yet, smacked across the kisser of the addressee for all to read. Like a red flag to a bull, they've launched flame wars across the internet ever since ARPANET was born in the early 1970s.

Today, of course, name calling and mean tweets are the daily slings and arrows we all face online if we engage in anything other than posting cute kitten pics on our personal blogs. If we get a mean tweet or a half-star rating on whatever it is we post for review, then it’s BAMB! We come back with a zinger of our own. Folks, it’s one thing for losers those who have lots of time on their hands to wield sharp words like Ninja warriors brandishing ninjatō swords in battle. But, after a while, if you're like most people it's ho-hum. Time to scroll on. Except, if you’re the notoriously thin-skinned President of the United States that mean tweet is another matter altogether. 

 

SO, LAST WEEK, there was a flame war on social media between President Trump and Dimitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current Deputy Chair of the Russian Security Council. Medvedev, who loves to troll Western elites, got a rise out of Donald Trump when he mocked Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Indian goods into the US as a penalty for India continuing to import Russian oil. Trump responded (on Truth Social), calling the economies of Russia and India “dead” and that his tarriff warnings should be taken seriously. Medvedev responded by saying that Russia and India were far from dead and reminded the American president that Russia has a "dead hand" and that Trump should not forget about it. The Russian was referring to the “dead hand” strategic defence system first activated in the 1980s. It ensures a launch of Russia’s ICBM missile force should there be a decapitation strike on Moscow. [BOAKYAG time. Ed.] It’s definitely provocative trolling but just that--trolling. Just words in the ether. Nothing more.

 

👉EXCEPT TRUMP,* called Medvedev’s X-post a “threat” and announced last Friday that he was repositioning two “nuclear submarines” closer to Russian shores (presumably one in the North Atlantic, the other in the Pacific). Whether they are nuclear “armed” or merely nuclear “powered” is unknown. Instead of an angry reply to Medvedev’s comment, Trump decides to threaten Russia with nukes.¹

👉WHAT THE FUCK?!! Moving subs closer to Russian shores and shortening the time SLBMs (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles) take to reach their targets, how is this a good thing? If you think Russia is treating this as a joke, you’re either kidding yourself or you’re an ostrich with your head in a hole and your feathery ass in the air! Think about it: WWIII because of a mean tweet! Perhaps we don’t deserve to exist as a species if this is the best and brightest we have leading us. Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an idiocracy. Or at least next door to one. Just sayin'.

 

 

 Cheers, Jake. ____________________________________ 

 

* I think we should consider the possibility that Trump is losing his marbles. Such a dangerous, pig-headed decision suggests to me that the American president is increasingly non compos mentis. Is America so  lacking in leadership that they must pick candidates from nursing homes? This is crazy! Thank our lucky stars there’s someone with a normal brain in the Kremlin! 

 

1. Recall that Trump recently okayed the transfer of nuclear bombs from America to an American base in Great Britain, the first time in nearly twenty years that B61-12 gravity bombs have been deployed there. Provocative? Yes. A threatening gesture? You bet. And you can rest assured that's how the Russians view such a move. And an American four-star general commented last week how NATO could overrun the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad lickety-split. These are not signals of diplomacy, tolerance and good will. Earlier, in June, there was Ukraine's "Operation Spiderweb" and those drone attacks on Russia's strategic bomber fleet. Also that month, NATO member states (including Canada) agreed to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. 😆  What message is Russia to take from all this? Our 'betters' are playing with fire. And all of us are liable to get burned.☮

 

[For a discussion on this serious matter, watch the short interview George Galloway has with Scott Ritter, former  United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) weapons inspector, author and commentator, here at the 1:07:57 mark of Galloway’s YouTube show. If Scott is worried, all of us should be worried.]