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If you’ve watched the Olympics on NBC you’ve probably seen ads promoting a war-o-tainment reality show cohosted by retired U.S. General Wesley Clark, co-starring Todd Palin, and with no apparent role for reality.
The ads brag about the use of real bullets in a way that promoters of the new Batman movie probably wouldn’t try. But the chances that any of the celebrities engaged in “war competition” on NBC’s “Stars Earn Stripes” will be shot and killed is essentially what it was for John Wayne, as he promoted war while dodging it (even if nuclear weapons testing got him in the end).
RootsAction.org and Just Foreign Policy have set up a website at StarsEarnStripes.org to push NBC to show the real cost of war, and to help get them started.
“Stars Earn Stripes” is being 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.) 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.
NBC news programs have repeatedly used retired generals, pretending independence but getting their pro-war talking points from the Pentagon. See New York Times: Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand and Glenn Greenwald: The Pulizer-Winning Investigation That Dare Not Be Uttered on TV.
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.”
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. And consider for a moment who that retired general is. 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. See Democracy Now! Confronts Wesley Clark Over His Bombing Of Civilians.
StarsEarnStripes.org is asking NBC to stop treating war as a sport, and to air an in-depth segment showing the reality of civilian victims of recent U.S. wars, on any program, any time in the coming months. We’ve provided some resources to help NBC research and show the reality of war, at http://StarsEarnStripes.org
3 Comments
Your output David is remarkable and deserving of long praise.
Thank you for doing what needs to be done and saying what needs to be said. Your contributions to the daily/weekly FDL politics reveal and talk menu surely compensate for the flimflam R vs. D junk that floats here at the Lake. Stay with it David. Your contributions to accurate,eyes wide open look,see and know politics are first class. I often wish Glenn Greenwald had landed here at FDL instead of Salon when he moved off of having his own blogsite “Unclaimed Territory” being the Salon site is lousy with R vs. D flimflam BS and the sites mechanics are terrible. I have stopped going to Salon on any regualar basis after the last so called “site improvement” was executed by Salon’s owner(s). Sadly this means foregoing GG as well much of the time now then too. Hence my wish that GG had become a FDL addition. But your efforts David are equally well done and presented so I am happy regarding that being so. Stay with it.
American Militarism has always been a big component in the mix of this nations’s history. The Revolution to throw off the British Empire was also where American Militarism came into being. Throwing off the Kings Army and Navy was no small task as we Americans have been telling ourselves ever since.
However the Americans took their independence from the British Empire as being a selective article as they turned on the Native Americans the full force of American colonialism,expansionism and subjugation. The Louisiana Purchase spared the French of having to battle the continent hungry Americans but Mexico,Hawaii and Spain were not so lucky. Japan got a big taste of American Militarism during the 19th century which left the Japanese with great desires to follow the American example. The British Empire had been allied with Japan but after WW1 that alliance was shifted to line up with the USA which the British shrewdly deduced was one which would benefit the British Empire much more and more often. By mid 1941 the British Empire was feeling the wall it was up against and lucky for them the American Empire served to push Germany and Japan into defeat. Post WW2 American Militarism just kept up the WW2 expansion and today we see the CIA/Pentagon are not subject to much WH or Capitol Hill restraint or genuine political oversight. We Americans do not vote for who runs the CIA or the Pentagon but should as this is where American Empire and American Militarism most readily intersect with American Global Hegemony and Corporatism.
War-O-Tainment is a sympton of this being so. Much of American Militarism is dependent of very good propaganda we Americans lavish on it. When was the last time you attended a 4th Of July where the emphasis was on American Democracy Of/For The People and not about the Flag being wrapped around what the Pentagon and CIA do?
It would be a needed turn of events if the coming attack on Tehran and Iran which WasihingtonDC seems deadset on mounting no matter what turns out very,very bad for the Americans with the carnage and imposed death tolls on Americans simply horrible. It is likely the only way we Americans may wake up to the Hitlerianism we are now practicing around the planet. I love my country and am very patriotic for what the USA should stand for,not what it contrives to impose on the planet with American Empire and Militarism. This is the disctinction that should be made,needs to be made as we all proceed towards a very crowded planet Earth by mid 21st century.
It is not 1898. It is not 1958. It is not 1998. It is not 2008. The treasure we Americans are throwing away on our wanton militarism is lost to all other more positive,creative,socially beneficial tasks. As David points out this state of affairs may benefit NBC and GE and Boeing and Lockheed Martin but it is crashing the USA for the rest of us. Too bad Barack Obama has proved to be the fraud POTUS Obama has demonstrated himself to be. We now are faced with picking Obama for four more years or picking Mitt Romney. It is a political farce as the collective differences between these two charlatans are at best cosmetic as both are pro corporatist,pro millitarist and pro One Percent. Barack Obama serves his masters well as would Mitt Romney if the WH becomes his. The rest of us? Time to wake up. Time to say Enough BS — We Are Not Taking It Anymore. Not there yet but either way — a Obama win or Romney win it is coming and drawing closer. Sooner. Better.
Thanks David. Stay with it. Recommended.
This is corporate synergy at its most refined: General Electric builds the weapons, NBC does the public relations work to make killing benign for the general public. . . and makes sure not to show the results on its nightly news programs.
Thank you, Dave. I just got the email about this from Roots Action this morning. Will the show feature NATO posters and logos, too?
As I don’t watch the Olympics, I appreciate knowing about it. Here’s the petition to NBC in case anyone missed it above.