"This is utterly disgusting. Glorifying war is like watching gladiators kill themselves before the demise of Rome. What next? The "entertainment" industry is getting more and more like a vapid cesspool of sensationalized junk. I for one am not "buying it" and most people probably feel the same way but could care less in expressing it to the hollow dim witted executives of NBC." Sheila Luecht
We need to speak out and express ourselves. This show, "Stars Earn Stripes" has got to go.
"Already 36,000 of us have signed. I'm writing to encourage you to add your nameand to forward this email to friends. Retired General Wesley Clark should be ashamed of himself for his role in promoting this "reality" show. He knows that war is not a game played by contestants. How ironic that PFC Bradley Manning has been in jail for more than two years for letting the public see the real truth of war, while NBC makes a profit out of making war into entertainment. -- Veterans For Peace President Leah Bolger"
Nine Nobel Peace Prize laureates have called for the show's cancellation, writing:
"Real war is down in the dirt deadly. People -- military and civilians -- die in ways that are anything but entertaining."
Our wars kill huge numbers of people, primarily civilians, and often children and the elderly. NBC is not showing this reality on its war-o-tainment show any more than on its news programs. Other nations' media show the face of war, giving people a very different view of war-making.
In the United States, our tax dollars are spent by the billions each year marketing the idea that war is a sport and associating the military with sporting events. Media companies like NBC are complicit in the propaganda.
While 57% of federal discretionary spending goes to the military, weapons makers can't seem to get enough of our tax dollars. In the spirit of transferring veterans' care to the realm of private charity, "Stars Earn Stripes" will give prize money each week to "military-based charities" in order to "send a message."
We have our own message that we will be delivering to NBC: Don't lie to us.
One of NBC’s corporate parents, General Electric, takes war very seriously, but not as human tragedy -- rather, as financial profit. (GE is a big weapons manufacturer.) A retired general hosting a war-o-tainment show is another step in the normalization of permanent war.
Please sign a short petition to NBC.
Please forward this email widely to like-minded friends.
--The RootsAction team
P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, and many others.
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Partners:
Background:
Nine Nobel Peace Laureates Call on NBC to Cancel "Stars Earn Stripes"
NBC's "Stars Earn Stripes" -- produced by the TV “genius” behind Donald Trump’s “Apprentice” and “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” (Husband Todd Palin is a “Stars Earn Stripes” co-star.)
Democracy Now! Confronts Wesley Clark Over His Bombing Of Civilians -- During the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia commanded by Gen. Wesley Clark, civilians and a TV station were bombed, while cluster bombs and depleted uranium were used. (Had Clark done these things for another nation, NBC would probably favor his prosecution and certainly not employ him.)
New York Times: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
Glenn Greenwald: The Pulizer-Winning Investigation That Dare Not Be Uttered on TV -- NBC news programs have repeatedly used retired generals, pretending independence but getting their pro-war talking points from the Pentagon.
Above from an email I received today regarding the petition.
Click on the link and sign this petition. We are not animals that need to be entertained in this way. It does not surprise me at all that Todd Palin is a part of this. Why would it? The idea that America has reduced itself to this "game" of war while our young people die, is terrible. I would have never believed it of our nation. Where does NBC get the idea that this is acceptable entertainment? Is it from the likes of the Tea Party? Is that what this is about?
The death and demise of the American Experiment seems to be an authentic concern these days. Much like the fall of Rome. When it gets so base and cruel, when we mock everyone and eveything and do it all for entertainment and money, when we are so out of control that something like this passes as entertainment, we should all be shocked. We should all be ready for the end too. How much more of this money driven industry manipulation of all that we once considered taboo can we take?
I am equally shocked that this is a "main" channel and not some cable station. Signing this petition is an opportunity to stand up. If you are in love with Sarah Palin and her Todd, well, you might want to hold off. Watching this show will put money in their pockets and since they are wanna be's of the 1%, you might prevent them from living in their "grab all the money you can in your fifteen minutes of fame" fantasy.
Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. When do we throw off this "version" of America?
Copyright 2012 by SheilaTGTG55
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Comments
Its nutty and just plain stupid.
HUGGGGGGGGGGGG
I clicked on the clip available featuring Olympic Gold Medalist Picabo Street. To be honest I really wasn't paying attention to why she was shooting or specifically what she was blowing up. The gripping music as it swelled and the enthusiasm and support for her shooting and blowing up something, there was a lot of excitement and yes, glorification. A glorious game show competition.
Then I went outside to smoke a few cigarettes and stop shaking so I could sit down and sign the petition. If someone hasn't gone to their website to look at it, and look at the clip then I urge you not to take my word, please go look.
Sheila, I wish I could think of something intelligent to say, I'm grossed out, sickened, repulsed. Being angry doesn't help, taking action doesn't help, asking them to stop doesn't help. We spiral ever downward, sometimes I think the only way our wars will end will be for us to run completely out of money. We have an endless supply of crazy leaders.
Petition signed, post rated.
I could rage for paragraphs.
Thank you and everyone please sign!
I wish everyone in the US could read your link above, the statement by the 7 Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Oscar Arias Sanchez, who felt it was important to speak out about this show, "Stars Earn Stripes."
Among their words,
"It is our belief that this program pays homage to no one anywhere, and continues and expands on an inglorious tradition of glorifying war and armed violence."
That is the last thing our country needs more of.
I was particularily dismayed to see an ex-combat corpsman taking part in the show. He of all people should know how far removed that show is from reality. They want realism then add a few rotting bodies, throw in some men screaming for help while their guts ooze out open wounds. Add the mind numbing fear that haunts you 24/7 and maybe....just for kicks...let the pop-up targets shoot back.
That show has nothing to do with reality. Hell I still dream of the real thing and I'm just an old man.
Thanks again, Sheila, I wouldn't have known about this protest. Thank goodness!
Soon we'll have TV executions.
r.
One would be the term "collateral damage" coined during the first Gulf War
What has especially aggravated me is the use of terms like "taken out", "take him out", etc. euphemisms which were used for the killing/assasination/execution of Osama bin Laden.
Oh my, how civilized we have to be. This particular show is, in part, the glamortization of war and the skills/arts of war. Speaking of which, the Olympics are precisely that as well--at least in an historical context.
By the same token why have we never taken NBC to task for the incessant pandering it does. To me, the most offensive show NBC has is L&O SVU. This show for years has pandered to the voyeur in us. Weekly it shows so-called crime fighting of sexual based crimes however the nature of those crimes is so very frequently, as far as I'm concerned, calculated to appeal to the that submerged part most of us have which is titillated by the type of perversion which is routinely shown. Granted the "crime fighters" win but I grew weary of it years ago and refuse to watch it. Why is there no outrage against that--especially within the context of women, feminism and exploitation.
So forgive me if I'm not as outraged as others. Hmmmmm isn't it interesting that all these examples are on NBC.
I signed.
l' Heure: Thanks for reading. I agree with you. I felt compelled to alert others to this.
Just Thinking: Thank you for signing and reading.
Clayball: Thank you for your visit. I was really pleased to see how many groups are organizing to speak out against this obvious military industrial complex bs.
David: I so agree. I immediately thought of all the death and terror that is war and decided that I had to sign this. It is ridiculous to glorify war in this manner. If they wanted to play at it, they should have identified it as such, naming something relevant to what it actually is, a parody of war. All the gung ho bs with frosting on top makes me sick. It is like putting wrapping paper on a dismembered body part of a dead soldier.
Jon: The thought crossed my mind.
Walter: Good points all. I wonder how it is seemingly just NBC too. Maybe they feel they are riding high in popularity now and anything goes. I just don't know. I do know that regardless of other causes and events, you have to start standing up and taking notice somewhere and this struck me hard. I am the child of WWII veterans, Air Corp and WAVE, I was insulted by the cheapening of their service and what war is being portrayed as.
Phyllis: Thank you. I just don't see anything worthy or right about this show.
Power to the people!!!
I'm genuinely curious. For those of you whose hackles are raised by this show, why? In a culture rife with war movies and war video games and "boot camp" workouts and Blue Angels airshows and many, many other examples of the "glorification" of war and the military, why did this show create the outrage?