Alfred Bernhard Nobel was the man credited with inventing dynamite. He was a famous chemist, engineer, and industrialist. He was known to be very wealthy, but a thoughtful recluse. He died in his own villa in San Remo, Italy of a brain hemorrhage. At the time of his death, he was one of the most wealthy men in the world.
(http://www.biography.com/articles/Alfred-Nobel-9424195)

The unique nature of Nobel’s last will and testament delayed the execution of it . He awarded none of his estate to any family members, which enraged them. The legal battle that followed the announcement of his last will and testament was an effort by his family to discredit the will on the basis that he was crazy in his old age. His last will and testament dictated that the whole of his estate be allocated to several interest bearing funds. The interest from these accounts would then be allocated to several Swedish organizations to be awarded to humans that have contributed the most that year in the fields of physics, medicine and psychology, and literature. To the Norwegian Storting (the Norwegian Parliament), he assigned the duty of awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a human that did the best work towards “fraternity of nations,” reduction of standing armies, and spreading of congress. He was sure to stipulate that the prize winner would not necessarily be Scandinavian, but the human that was most outstanding in the area of peace.
(http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/alfred-nobel/testament/)

The amount of the prize money is significant: 10 million Swedish Crowns, or $1,583,030 according to Google Finance. It took a while for the king of Sweden to validate the Nobel Committee, because it was deemed “unpatriotic,” since non-Swedes could win the awards. Once the organization was formed, it began handing out awards to worthy candidates in 1901. The organization eventually began giving out the prize, not just to individuals, but organizations that the Norwegian Nobel Committee felt were worthy. It is also interesting to note, that prizes were not given out every year.

Of the 90 recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, 4 of them were American Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt (1906), Woodrow Wilson (1919), Jimmy Carter (2002), and Barak Obama (2009). Theodore Roosevelt received it for drawing up the peace treaty between Russia and Japan in 1905. Woodrow Wilson received it for authoring the Fourteen Points Speech. The Nobel Committee felt it was important for promoting peace after World War 1. Jimmy Carter received it for a lifetime of work towards promoting peace between nations. In particular, it was mentioned that he is responsible for good relations between Egypt and Israel at a time when the Cold War with Russia was still a concern. Barak Obama received it for vast efforts to strengthen international diplomacy. In particular, the Nobel Committee was grateful for his promoting a decline in nuclear weapons internationally, which is one of the efforts that the Nobel Committee has strived for. Non-presidential Americans that received the award were Al Gore for his work on increasing awareness of climate change, Martin Luther King Jr. for his campaign for civil rights, Jody Williams for her international campaign to ban landmines, Henry Kissinger for negotiating the Vietnam Peace accord, and Frank B. Kellogg for negotiating the Briand-Kellogg Pact.
(http://nobelpeaceprize.org/en_GB/laureates/)

I believe it is important for any reader of this essay to do their own research on each of these award winners to determine their own opinions about the prize, and to determine how Americans viewed the actions of their fellow Americans at the time of them receiving the prize. In the small amount of research I have done I have come to new conclusions about the American public, the rest of the world’s perspective on America and Americans, and the roll that the Nobel Peace Prize plays in the world. My conclusions will not be shared in this essay, but I urge you, the reader, to form your own conclusions.

There are positive things about publicly placing the blame of a negative event on the entity or entities responsible for causing the event. This motivates the responsible entity to solve the problem and encourages other entities to avoid the same mistake.

There are negative things about placing the blame on responsible entities, as well. For instance: placing blame on an entity that is responsible in general, but that is not to blame for the the actual occurrence of a particular negative event, hurts the entity, and also wastes everyone’s creative energy involved when that energy could have been used to resolve the issue.

Another example where blame causes harm is when an entity causes a negative event, cannot solve the problem, and blames other entities for not helping. This causes more creative energy waste, because it makes it harder for other entities to want to help the entity at fault because they don’t want to incur guilt by association.

This type of wasteful blaming can turn a negative event into a more negative event: one that cannot and will not be resolved. What if there was a person that knew the solution to the problem at hand? What if the blame game was discouraging that person from creating the solution by harshly judging anyone who associates them self with the problem solving process?

The Blame Game in America has become the spawn of American laziness and ignorance. Americans complain about things they see on the news without understanding completely what is going on and without regard for the effects of their complaint on the possibility of resolving the issue. Americans do this because they like to act like they are helpless. Americans go to work and pay taxes. Why should they have to do anything else except complain about problems not being solved? I’ll tell you why: because they can.

Americans are the most powerful people in the world. They have the choice to use that power responsibly by creating solutions to the world’s problems or to use that power to bring each other down and be unproductive. One major tool of the destructive Americans is The American Blame Game.

As a player in The American Blame Game, I blame the destructive users of The American Blame Game. They use free speech to destroy creative problem solving. Here is my solution to fixing The Blame Game in America: next time an American feels like speaking out about an issue, they need to ask themselves if speaking out helps the problem solvers. If an American wishes to speak out against a problem solver, they should first ask themselves if they are a problem solver. If they are not a problem solver, and they are not willing to face the same ridicule that problem solvers face in America due to free speech, then they need to be quiet.

My solution to the problem of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is to buy more BP gas. In fact, I am going to buy only BP gas until this problem is fixed. Why? Because they are the ones trying to solve this problem more than anyone else. BP has spent more than anyone trying to stop the oil from spilling more, and it is their scientists and engineers that will probably end up being the ones that solve the problem, or at least make it less of a problem than it could be. I don’t applaud BP in having caused this disaster. I don’t applaud BP in lieing about the magnitude of the crisis. I DO applaud BP for not closing up shop and letting the world deal with it, which IS an option for them since they are a corporation. I do not want BP to go away since they are on the forefront of trying to solve this problem in the Gulf.

I plead with you, my fellow Americans, buy more BP gas until this is over.

In Feudal Japan, if you disobeyed your Shogun, you were often ordered to commit suicide. If you refused to commit suicide, then you would be boiled alive in the middle of town for all to hear the screaming voice of disobedience. More recently, in Iraq, if you were a child at school and someone said Saddam Hussein’s name out loud, everyone would have to clap their hands. If you didn’t clap your hands, you were taken to another room outside the classroom and asked what your parents say about Saddam Hussein at home. If you said that your parents think Saddam is a liar, or some other description short of adoration, then you would be executed. The military would then visit your family’s house, and everyone would be anally raped, have their toenails and fingernails ripped out, and then burned alive… men, women, and children… everyone except for the donkey, sheep, and camel. This is oppression. This is absolute power. This is a power that says, “Do what I say, or I will show you what is worse than death.” This kind of power does not exist America. In America, anyone can stand up and publicly proclaim the president a liar… and survive.

Is tyranny when a leader provides a solution to a problem, the solution is voted into action, and then the solution fails and makes matters worse? Is tyranny when a leader tries to pass a law and fails? Is tyranny winning a presidential election in America? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then you are part of the mis-education movement in America. Your movement spreads ignorance to your fellow Americans by using freedom of speech and press. Your movement then gains popularity, positive public opinion, and attention: things that can be used to sell books, make successful movies, sell T-shirts, and get spots on popular talk shows. All of these things pay money. It’s a pretty good living, too. You can get up to $5000 or more giving a lecture at a college. I don’t know exactly how much talk show guests get paid, but I bet it’s a lot more than that. All you have to do is talk to enough ignorant Americans and make them feel good about their ignorance, and they will like you and give you their money. The mis-education movement does not mind that it is destructive to more positive movements that attempt to advance education and public awareness about issues. The mis-education movement does not mind that it is causing more harm to our country than any political figure ever could. The only thing the mis-education movement cares about is that it’s popular, and people like it. That’s all that matters, right?

Using freedom to destroy the future of our liberties is what I am fighting here. Americans are allowed to make a company that becomes the biggest company in America, and then destroy it, thus destroying a huge part of the American economy. It has happened before, and it will happen again, but shouldn’t we do something to try to keep it from happening? Shouldn’t we strive to be constructive in action and avoid making public statements that lead masses of Americans down a destructive path? I think we should.

Personally, I believe that this huge government loan, popularly called “a bailout”, is a warning. If we don’t watch out, we can make enough poor business decisions to take America down with us. If we do it enough, then there will no longer be a bailout. So many people are so quick to point a finger at the figureheads and call them tyrants and terrorists and forget that we are the ones that run this country. If America fails, it’s our fault. If the mis-education movement prevails, then I have failed at fighting it. If this economy fails, I didn’t work hard enough to maintain it. That’s the American way. The American way is not sitting on our fat posteriors, watching the news, and looking for a new figurehead to blame for our miserable lives. Get up, get out, and fix America.