NBC has a new un-reality series, featuring celebrities competing in military-style challenges. It\u2019s called \u201cStars Earn Stripes.\u201d \u00a0The series pairs up celebrities with military personnel to go through simulated military training and win a competition. For an extra dose of \u201creality,\u201d it\u2019s hosted by retired General Wesley Clark [who should be ashamed of the exploitation]. The series\u2019 producer is Mark Burnett, one of whose claims to reality-tv fame is the highly-manipulated \u201cSurvivor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just after the new series premiered\u2014following a non-stop promotional blitz during the London Olympics–10 Nobel Peace Prize winners joined together to protest its premise.<\/p>\n

In an open letter to the chairman of NBC Entertainment<\/a>, the Peace Prize winners accuse NBC of glorifying war and military combat:<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Military training is not to be compared, subtly or otherwise, with athletic competition by showing commercials throughout the Olympics.\u00a0 Preparing for war is neither amusing nor entertaining.<\/p>\n

Real war is down in the dirt deadly.\u00a0 People\u2014military and civilians\u2014die in ways that are anything but entertaining.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 War, whether relatively short-lived or going on for decades as in too many parts of the world, leaves deep scarsthat can take generations to overcome \u2013 if ever.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Nobel Laureates go on to say that:<\/p>\n

The long history of collaboration between militaries and civilian media and entertainment\u2014and not just in the United States\u2014appears to be getting murkier and in many ways more threatening to efforts to resolve our common problems through nonviolent means.\u00a0 Active-duty soldiers already perform in Hollywood movies, \u201cembedded\u201d 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 \u201creality\u201d TV show that reveals absolutely nothing of the reality of being a soldier in war or the consequences of war.\u00a0 What is next?<\/p>\n

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 \u201cStars Earn Stripes.\u201d\u00a0 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The letter was signed by:<\/p>\n

Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Prize, 1997<\/p>\n

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize, 1984<\/p>\n

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize, 1977<\/p>\n

Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Prize, 2003<\/p>\n

President Jos\u00e9 Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Prize, 1996<\/p>\n

Adolfo P\u00e9rez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Prize, 1980<\/p>\n

President Oscar Arias Sanchez, Nobel Peace Prize, 1987<\/p>\n

Rigoberta Mench\u00fa Tum, Nobel Peace Prize, 1992<\/p>\n

Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Prize, 1977<\/p>\n

Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize, 2006<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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