Nobel Peace Prize Winners Want NBC To Take 'Stars Earn Stripes' Off The Air

A group of nine Nobel Peace Prize winners have published an open letter to NBC over its new reality show "Stars Earn Stripes."
The show pairs up celebrities and American military members for military-related challenges.
The protesters, who include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, say that the show treats military maneuvers like athletic events, and that it "glorifies war."
NBC has yet to comment on the matter.
Here's the full letter, from Nobel Women's Initiative:
WAR ISN’T ENTERTAINMENT— AND SHOULDN’T BE TREATED LIKE IT IS
August 13, 2012
An Open Letter to Mr. Robert Greenblatt, Chairman of NBC Entertainment, General Wesley Clark (ret.), Producer Mark Burnett and others involved in “Stars Earn Stripes”:
During the Olympics, touted as a time for comity and peace among nations, millions first learned that NBC would be premiering a new “reality” TV show. The commercials announcing “Stars Earn Stripes” were shown seemingly endlessly throughout the athletic competition, noting that its premier would be Monday, August 13, following the end of the Olympic games.
That might seem innocuous since spectacular, high budget sporting events of all types are regular venues for airing new products, televisions shows and movies. But “Stars Earn Stripes” is not just another reality show. Hosted by retired four-star general Wesley Clark, the program pairs minor celebrities with US military personnel and puts them through simulated military training, including some live fire drills and helicopter drops. The official NBC website for the show touts “the fast-paced competition” as “pay[ing] homage to the men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces and our first-responder services.”
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. Military training is not to be compared, subtly or otherwise, with athletic competition by showing commercials throughout the Olympics. Preparing for war is neither amusing nor entertaining.
Real war is down in the dirt deadly. People—military and civilians—die in ways that are anything but entertaining. Communities and societies are ripped apart in armed conflict and the aftermath can be as deadly as the war itself as simmering animosities are unleashed in horrific spirals of violence. War, whether relatively short-lived or going on for decades as in too many parts of the world, leaves deep scars that can take generations to overcome – if ever.
Trying to somehow sanitize war by likening it to an athletic competition further calls into question the morality and ethics of linking the military anywhere with the entertainment industry in barely veiled efforts to make war and its multitudinous costs more palatable to the public.
The long history of collaboration between militaries and civilian media and entertainment—and not just in the United States—appears to be getting murkier and in many ways more threatening to efforts to resolve our common problems through nonviolent means. Active-duty soldiers already perform in Hollywood movies, “embedded” media ride with soldier in combat situations, and now NBC is working with the military to attempt to turn deadly military training into a sanitized “reality” TV show that reveals absolutely nothing of the reality of being a soldier in war or the consequences of war. What is next?
As people who have seen too many faces of armed conflict and violence and who have worked for decades to try to stop the seemingly unending march toward the increased militarization of societies and the desensitization of people to the realities and consequences of war, we add our voices and our support to those protesting “Stars Earn Stripes.” We too call upon NBC stop airing this program that pays homage to no one, and is a massive disservice to those who live and die in armed conflict and suffer its consequences long after the guns of war fall silent.
Sincerely,
Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize, 1997
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize, 1984
Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize, 1977
Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize, 2003
President José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize, 1996
Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize, 1980
President Oscar Arias Sanchez, Nobel Peace Prize, 1987
Rigoberta Menchú Tum, 1992
Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize, 1977

Nobel Peace Prize Winners Want NBC To Take 'Stars Earn Stripes' Off The Air - Yahoo! Finance

no comments, hot topic [pic]

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!! this stupid show

blah the gov't eats off the military why cant NBC and other companies with sponsoring affiliation do the same?

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This isn't the first Military inspired game show. There are a number of shows that glamorize military combat and weapons on TV. People need to quit trying to speak for other and let the public decide for themselves. If people don't want to see it, the rates will suck and the network will cancel it. We have shows glamorizing the wives of the mafia (a criminal empires that stretch across continents and practice in drug trade, murk, kidnapping, prostitution, etc), shows about teen pregnancy, and a whole of other BS on TV.

When you want to go against something, it becomes controversial and people find it more interesting. Media is the one avenue where a "look the other way" approach will work. Give people an alternative, ask the network to put out a show about altruism and rebuilding war torn communities, that way people will understand the effects of combat. If you take the combat show off the air, people still won't understand the ramifications of war.

screw the show. 7 Peace Prize winners haven't spoken up for nothing. They have a point and their wisdom is best taken to heart

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hunger games[pic]

!! like this and C.o.D. make people want to "serve" our "country." Slave for our country to protect the[..]ets of the rich. To brainwash society. To follow orders even if they're inhumane.

This country is !!ed, and so goes the World.

[pic][pic] DAMN u went in