NBC Invents War-o-tainment

[Keith Millea]

America is SO fuckin' sick...............

From StarsEarnStripes.org:



NBC Invents War-o-tainment

Demand a more accurate picture of war by signing the petition to NBC below.

NBC has created an entertainment show that breaks new ground. "Stars Earn Stripes" will be co-hosted by retired U.S. general Wesley Clark. NBC is promoting the show during its Summer Olympics telecast as the next big sporting event. But the sport it's exhibiting is war.

On "Stars Earn Stripes," celebrities will pair-up with members of the U.S. military to compete at war-like tasks, including "long-range weapons fire." Only there won't be any of the killing or dying.

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: Dont 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 this short petition to NBC:

Petition at the link below:

http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/...n_KEY=6405

[Magda Hassan]

[URL="http://billmoyers.com/segment/karl-marlantes-on-what-its-like-to-go-to-war/"]Video here
[/URL][URL="http://billmoyers.com/segment/karl-marlantes-on-what-its-like-to-go-to-war/"]

Karl Marlantes on What It's Like to Go to War

July 27, 2012
Bill talks to Karl Marlantes a highly-decorated Vietnam veteran, Rhodes Scholar, author, and PTSD survivor about what we on the insulated outside need to understand about the minds and hearts of our modern warriors. Marlantes shares with Bill intimate stories about how his battlefield experiences both shaped and nearly destroyed him, even after returning to civilian life.
"'Thou shalt not kill' is a tenet you just do not violate, and so all your young life, that's drilled into your head. And then suddenly, you're 18 or 19 and they're saying, Go get em and kill for your country.' And then you come back and it's like, Well, thou shalt not kill' again. Believe me, that's a difficult thing to deal with," Marlantes tells Bill. "You take a young man and put him in the role of God, where he is asked to take a life that's something no 19-year-old is able to handle."


http://billmoyers.com/segment/karl-marla...go-to-war/[/URL]

[Albert Doyle]

CIA is "blooding" the US public with pro-military programming on a CIA-controlled TV media.


CNN was the first military info-tainment channel with its weapons system showcases etc.


Kill Lennon and then make America a captive military reservation.

[Magda Hassan]

CIA is "blooding" the US public with pro-military programming on a CIA-controlled TV media.


CNN was the first military info-tainment channel with its weapons system showcases etc.


Kill Lennon and then make America a captive military reservation.

Agreed Albert. I remember the way CNN covered the first Gulf War with Bush senior. Those stealth bombers with the night vision shots etc. 24 hour coverage as it happened.

[Keith Millea]

Magda,

Thanks for posting up that excellent video by Karl Marlantes.The guy is very intelligent and can articulate the combat soldier experience in a far better way than most grunts are willing and capable of. :thumbsup:

[Keith Millea]

:hippy:

09.03.12 - 11:17 AM

War Is Not Fun

by Abby Zimet

It's looking likely that Wesley Clark and his deranged band of has-beens and glory seekers will hit the dustbin of god-awful "entertainment" history after tonight's last episode of NBC's war-is-fun! "reality show," Stars Earn Stripes. Credit weekly protests by a broad spectrum of groups, a RootsAction.org petition signed by 50,000 people, a blast from seven Nobel prize winners, bad press, and few enough viewers to suggest, remarkably, there might yet be a level of tastelessness to which even blood-and-guts-hungry TV viewers will not go.

"The messages from 'Stars Earn Stripes' are all wrong," said Norman Solomon, co-founder of RootsAction.org. "The role of Wesley Clark is a symbol of the warfare state that combines war, politics, media profits and show biz. While killing some people, wounding others and causing untold damage to countless lives, we continue to enable what Martin Luther King Jr. called 'the madness of militarism' - a widespread affliction that top political leaders of both parties celebrate."

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/09/03-0