I would like to congratulate the 500 million citizens of the European Union for winning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. The same people who awarded one of the world’s greatest honors to Barack Obama upon entering office–before his Afghanistan escalation and his drone assassinations–this time gave the prize to a whole country. Or, perhaps better, to a whole alliance of different countries. Even though the union isn’t doing so well right now, what with the economic crisis and the common currency in jeopardy.
If the Norwegian committee that made this decision wanted to honor the European Union as a major achievement in world peace, why wouldn’t it instead honor the people who first had the idea or who implemented the alliance? I dislike collective entities winning prizes like this, including when Time Magazine gives its “Person of the Year” award to abstractions and non-persons. But if Norway (which is not even a member of the European Union) wants to award the $1.5 million prize in this way, that’s fine. But that means the public could offer new kinds of nominees. For next year, I nominate the following:
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