Prizes

What a difference a day makes. Or does it?

Recently I posted questions about the current U.S. government's commitment to nonviolence and universal justice. This morning I awoke to the good news that President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. This is a great honor, despite the fact that the Nobel Peace Prize was withheld five times from Gandhi, considered by many to be the modern patron saint of nonviolence. It is a great honor, despite the fact that two other nominees, a women-rights activist in Afghanistan and a Congolese doctor, working with rape victims, risk their lives every time they step out their front doors in their own countries. I sincerely hope Mr. Obama uses this elevated stature as peacemaker in the eyes of the world's elite to foster an end to American aggression and violence against civilian populations.

A more stunning development occurred in the U.S. Congress in the last twenty four hours. The House of Representatives managed to include GLBT people in the Federal Hate Crime statutes through an inclusion in a defense budget bill. I find this rather ironic, but I will accept this as an attempt of those with a clear popular mandate on this issue to deliver. Well done. The snarling of the Right Wing is minimal. Perhaps a more amazing development.

However, the most encouraging news of the past twenty four hours for me was an NPR report that new Supreme Court justice, Justice Sotomayor, courageously questioned the 1911 statute that declared U.S. corporations to be persons under the law. Brava! This question is potentially the beginning of a challenge to the strangle-hold the corporations have on the entire political process in the United States.

My previously posted questions about political will against violence, aggression and injustice still stand. I am heartened by today's news. I have not abandoned my belief that Mr. Obama and some in Congress and other branches of government are sincere in their own hope for change. Yet, I hope for greater transparency. I hope for actual results.