My Perspective: Promises vs. Actions

"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world."
--Joel A. Barker

Patrick Henry once said, “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.” Well I say, give me actions not just promises. When I heard of President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I had mixed emotions not because I have ill will toward Obama because I want him to succeed on those policies I know are right for me and other Americans and not because I am an African American because us sharing the same race makes me proud just like us being Americans makes me just as proud but my emotions were mixed because it brought about the issue of words vs. actions. I was raised to believe that one’s actions should speak louder than their words and one’s promises should always be kept. Therefore Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his promises and words as well as perhaps his attempted actions although still incomplete toward peace is why I had mixed emotions.

So as I posted a link on Facebook page to an article done by Yahoo! News entitled, “Analysis: Obama's Nobel honors promise, not action” I wrote the following comment, “Now I hope this is encouragement to our youth that the promise of doing something is just as good as the action itself. This is what I take from this great analysis of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Still I say Congrads President Obama.” Now some people such as my friend Ayesha J. Johnson commented on the link and said, "Promise of doing something is just as good as the action itself." While others such as William Richardson said, “But what if he reneges on his promises? Then what? Do we still tout him as a worthy Nobel Prize winner. I think that there were many other much more deserving people who actually DID something this year especially the two activists from China and Columbia. On that too I have to say that continuing two wars, pointing the barrel at Iran, supporting Israel in its war crimes and handing over billions to the banks is not my image of peace. Or am I just blind lol?”

Still I have to say that both individuals bring up good points but while promises can be the beginning of an action, I don’t agree with Ayesha that a promise of doing something is just as good as the action itself because it is action itself of doing it that should be watched and carefully examined while the promise itself is simply words but if we don’t hold a person accountable for doing it than it means nothing. Also people go back on their promises and as William stated, what if someone reneges on their promise and no I am not saying Obama will do that but the truth of the matter is, I have seen moments when Obama campaigned and promised to get certain things done but to a degree he has reneged or stepped back off of some of his promises. However this is not just about Obama because tons of people make promises or say they are going to do something but they eventually renege on their words.

Which is why I told Ayesha and William that I prefer actions over promises because a promise can be broken but showing action on an issue is what people need to be rewarded for not simply promising to do something. Still in life, many people win awards and even scholarships contests, or grants based off the promise they are going to do this as they stated in their winning essay or proposal. Nonetheless I do think William was on to something in some of what he said. However the notion of “Promises vs. Actions” is the very issue that some people including supporters of Obama have with him winning the award or should I say should have but nonetheless Congrats are still in order for President Obama regardless of that issue.

Still the honoring promise, not action really needs to be discussed and analyzed more deeply as the article I posted on my Facebook page as link does. It reads, “The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama landed with a shock on darkened, still-asleep Washington. He won! For what? For one of America's youngest presidents, in office less than nine months — and only for 12 days before the Nobel nomination deadline last February — it was an astonishing award. But the prize seems to be more for promise than performance. Obama so far has no standout moment of victory. As for most presidents in their first year, the report card on Obama's ambitious agenda is an "incomplete."”

It goes on to read, “He banned extreme interrogation techniques for terrorists. But he also promised to close the globally controversial U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a task with difficulties that have Obama headed to miss his own January 2010 deadline. He said he would end the Iraq war. But he slowed the U.S. troop drawdown a bit. Meantime, he's running a second war in the Muslim world, in Afghanistan — and is seriously considering ramping that one up. He has pushed for new efforts to make peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. But there's been little cooperation so far. His administration is talking to U.S. foes, like Iran, North Korea and Cuba. But there's not much to show from that, either.”

However Obama also said he wants a nuclear-free world. But it was one thing to show the desire in his April Prague speech, and quite another to unite hesitant nations and U.S. lawmakers behind the necessary web of treaties and agreements. He pledged to take the lead against climate change. But the U.S. seems likely to head into December's crucial international negotiations in Copenhagen with Obama-backed legislation still stalled. And what about Obama's global prestige? It seemed to take a hit exactly a week ago when his trans-Atlantic journey to win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago was rejected with a last-place finish.

Nonetheless for the Nobel committee, merely altering the tone out of Washington toward the rest of the world seemed enough. Obama got much attention for his speech from Cairo reaching out a U.S. hand to the world's Muslims. His remarks at the U.N. General Assembly last month set down internationally welcome new markers for the way the U.S. works with the world. But still. ... Obama aides seemed as surprised as everyone else, not even aware of his nomination along with a record 204 others. The president was awakened with the news about an hour after the vote was announced, and aides scrambled to prepare a statement.

The prize is not necessarily a big plus for Obama in the tricky U.S. political arena. He won election last year in part because voters weary with the nation's battered image abroad were attracted to his promise of a new start. But Republicans have been criticizing Obama as being too much celebrity and too little action, and they immediately seized on this new praise — from Europeans, no less — to try to bring him down a peg. From Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, for instance: "It is unfortunate that the president's star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements."

For Nobel voters, the award could be as much a slap at Obama's predecessor as about lauding Obama. Former President George W. Bush was reviled by much of the world for his cowboy diplomacy, Iraq war and snubbing of European priorities like global warming.
And remember that the Nobel prize has a long history of being awarded more for the committee's aspirations than for others' accomplishments — for Mideast peace or a better South Africa, for instance. In some cases, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments.

Nobel committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said as much. "Some people say, and I understand it, isn't it premature? Too early?" he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now. It is now that we have the opportunity to respond — all of us." Obama certainly understands his challenges are too steep to resolve quickly. "It's not going to be easy," the president often says as he sets tasks for the United States. The Nobel committee, it seems, had the audacity to hope that he'll eventually produce a record worthy of its prize.

Still after reading the article, I had to ask people, “Do you prefer actions or promises? This is a critical issue in the wake of President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. Is the promise of trying to have peace just as important as actually bringing peace and if so what does this mean to many future promises of peace and other promises that could be broken or not achieved. So do you prefer actions or promises? One individual named Patrick R. Comer said, “There is more to this than the "promise" of achieving peace that one must look at. It's the actions that one has began to take to achieve that promise as it's the ability to motivate others to believe in that vision. Obama has shown the ability to motivate others to believe in his vision. By which, he makes the road to achieving peace easier than other before him.” So as I read Patrick’s comments I responded by saying, “The real question is do you believe in promises or actions. I believe that one's actions speaks louder than their words and Obama's promises of peace so far have not been made easier when all his initiatives for peace are incomplete. All I am saying my friend is that in life, we can't award for promises but instead need to reward for actions more so than simply promises of possible action.”

I also continued to say, “ I am proud of he got the Nobel Peace Award as well as anyone who receives any honors but nonetheless this doesn’t excuse the fact that that this is setting up a debate that I have had for years about actions vs. words. Actions speak louder than words my friend and I understand words inspire people and give hope but if actions which are results don’t follow those words than the words itself are meaningless to me. I think you can agree upon that which is why I believe in actions rather than promises because actions mean you worked toward it or achieved it. Promises simply mean you plan to do it but that doesn’t mean you will actually do it.

Lastly I had to disagree with Partick’s statement that Obama has made peace easier than others before him because I think people such as Dr. King and Gandhi and others inspired others toward peace just as much as Obama but if Patrick meant American Presidents than I think Jimmy Carter is the standard barrier for peace which is one of the reasons he was not re-elected because he was seen as too peaceful and friendly by members of his own party as well as the opposition party.

However some columnists even agree that actions not promises need to be awarded with Nancy Gibbs writing a piece entitled, “Obama's Nobel: The Last Thing He Needs.” She writes, “The last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise. Inspirational words have brought him a long way - including to the night in Grant Park less than a year ago when he asked that we "join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."”

She continues to write, “By now there are surely more callouses on his lips than his hands. He, like every new president, has reckoned with both the power and the danger of words, dangers that are especially great for one who wields them as skillfully as he. A promise beautifully made raises hopes especially high: we will revive the economy while we rein in our spending; we will make health care simpler, safer, cheaper, and fairer. We will rid the earth of its most lethal weapons. We will turn green and clean. We will all just get along. So when reality bites, it chomps down hard. The Nobel committee cited "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." His critics fault some of those efforts: those who favor a missile shield for Poland or a troop surge in Afghanistan or a harder line on Iran. But even his fans know that none of the dreams have yet come true, and a prize for even dreaming them can feed the illusion that they have.

Nancy Gibbs continues on to say, “Maybe the prize will give him more power, new muscles to haul unruly nations in line. But peacemaking is more about ingenuity than inspiration, about reading other nations' selfish interests and cynically, strategically exploiting them for the common good. Will it help if fewer countries come to the table hating us? To a point. But it's a starting point, not an end in itself. At this moment many Americans are longing for a president who is more bully, less pulpit. The president who leased his immense inaugural good will to the hungry appropriators writing the stimulus bill, who has not stopped negotiating health care reform except to say what is non-negotiable, whose solicitude for the wheelers and dealers who drove the financial system into a ditch leaves the rest of us wondering who has our back, has always shown great promise, said the right things, affirmed every time he opens his mouth that he understands the fears we face and the hopes we hold. But he presides over a capital whose day-to-day functioning has become part-travesty, part-tragedy, wasteful, blind, vain, petty, where even the best intentioned reformers measure their progress with teaspoons. There comes a time when a President needs to take a real risk - and putting his prestige on the line to win the Olympics for his home town does not remotely count.”

Nancy continues to write, “Compare this to Greg Mortenson, nominated for the prize by some members of Congress, who the bookies gave 20-to-1 odds of winning. Son of a missionary, a former army Medic and mountaineer, he has made it his mission to build schools for girls in places where opium dealers and tribal warlords kill people for trying. His Central Asia Institute has built more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan - a mission which has, along the way, inspired millions of people to view the protection and education of girls as a key to peace and prosperity and progress. Sometimes the words come first. Sometimes, it's better to let actions speak for themselves.”

Therefore what matters, is it the words or the actions that follow the words or better yet does the actions speak for themselves. That is truly the debate that should be discussed as we go forward with awarding any type of prize or reward. However there is still a need to understand how the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded. "The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given too someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said. Nominators include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; "We trust that this award will strengthen his commitment, as the leader of the most powerful nation in the world, to continue promoting peace and the eradication of poverty," the foundation said.

In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses." Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, he said the peace prize should be given out by a five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Sweden and Norway were united under the same crown at the time of Nobel's death. So with understanding that it is understandable why Obama got the award or is it.

Still when we award things based off of promises or words, it does create expectations or even great expectations for one to do what they said and more to a degree. However response to President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize seems to be falling into two broad categories: the overwrought and the overthought. Why not a simple note of congratulations? The right-wing blowhards, of course, are braying that this is some kind of surrender to the wooly-headed, socialistic, One World ideology of cheese-eating (or herring-chomping) Eurocrats. These same bags of wind were delirious with joy when the sports division of the One World conspiracy, the International Olympic Committee, turned down Obama’s personal appeal in Copenhagen. If someone else had won the Nobel, they’d be cackling that the president had been given another comeuppance. All this just proves that if Obama were to cure cancer, the blowhards would complain that he’s put thousands of hard-working, red-blooded American oncologists out of work.

Others say the award is “premature.” Okay, I can see that argument, but the Nobel committee apparently considered Obama’s redirection of American foreign policy toward multilateralism a groundbreaking accomplishment. The committee, it seems, thought that for the most powerful national leader in the world to embrace international cooperation and envision a world no longer menaced by nuclear weapons was a giant step forward. I can see that argument, too. In fact, I think I agree with it. Still others, claiming to have Obama’s best interests at heart, say the award is an unfortunate blow because it “creates expectations.” Excuse me? When you’re president of the United States, aren’t great expectations – even unrealistic expectations – pretty much part of the deal? You think they haven’t figured that out at the White House by now?

Maybe I’m insufficiently cynical, but I never thought of the Nobel Peace Prize as having such a tremendous downside. Still when you think about it, it's not all that remarkable that President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize based on a nomination made just nine days after he took office. It fits perfectly with the rest of his resume. Obama won the White House after serving just four years in the U.S. Senate, half of which he spent on the presidential campaign trail. While in the Senate, not a single piece of legislation was passed because of his championship.

Before coming to Washington, Obama spent six unremarkable years in the Illinois Senate, and prior to that he was a law professor and community organizer. Obama's resume has never been his strength. He has advanced in leaps and bounds based on his promise and ahead of his actual achievements. Now he's won a Nobel Prize, apparently for talking a good game about a more civil world and, in large part, for not being George W. Bush. But the hard work to justify that prize is yet to be done.

However perhaps Obama made the best indication regarding promises and actions when he delivered the following remarks: “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace. But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.”

Obama went to say, “That is why I've said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won't all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone. This award -- and the call to action that comes with it -- does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better. So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we've begun together. I'm grateful that you've stood with me thus far, and I'm honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.”

While for some people that won’t close the debate over promises vs. actions but for me, it does one thing and that is Obama himself is humble enough to realize that his promises have not yet been fulfilled and he recognizes that actions speak louder than mere awards, words or promises. Therefore I hope everyone understands that we need to let our actions speak louder than our words and like the quote above by Joel A. Barker, it is when vision with action that we can change the world but the two by themselves is simply a dream and a way to pass time. Therefore we as people must always keep our promises by doing the actions necessary to complete those promises and at the same time, we must hold people accountable for their promises and their words so that they do the actions necessary to do what they said or promised to do. This is the only way.

Reference:
If Obama can get one, you can, too
http://www.freep.com/article/20091011/COL01/910110484/1318/If-Obama-can-get-a-Nobel-Peace-Prize--you-can--too