Nine, count'em nine, Nobel Prize winners ask that the reality show which features Todd Palin be pulled off the air. This day just keeps getting better and better.

Desmond Tutu, and eight more Nobel Prize winner, demand that NBC drop "Stars Earn Stripes."

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Nine Nobel Peace prize winners said Monday that NBC must “immediately” drop a planned “reality” show called “Stars Earn Stripes,” where former four-star general and one-time Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark sends celebrities on military-style training “missions” to entertain viewers. 

Signers of an open letter to the network include Nobelists Desmond Tutu, Dr. Shirin Ebadi, Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Jose Ramos-Horta, Jody Williams, Mairead Maguire, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Rigoberta Menchu and Betty Williams. 

Here is their letter in full:  


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 

Well THAT certainly did not pull any punches. Nor in my opinion should it.

What they have written is completely accurate and their request reasonable.

We are indeed inundated with images of war in our movies, in our television programming, and most especially egregiously, in our children's video games.

We are constantly being taught to glorify people whose job it is to kill other people.

Military action should be rare, terrifying, and resorted to in only the most dire and threatening of circumstances, and yet we as a country seem to look for excuses to "unleash the dogs of war" at every perceived slight, and ridicule a leader who seeks the path of diplomacy to solve our differences instead of destroying our "enemies" homes, murdering their people, and implanting our own version of government in the place of the one that dared to thumb their nose at us.

And as bad as all of that is, now we want to celebrate our history of aggressive military action by letting this guy play act the role of the hero in order to help redeem is hillbilly family's now virtually non-existent good name.

I think yanking it off the air would be a great service to the American people.

Of course not EVERYBODY feels that way.

Looking forward to watching "Stars Earn Stripes" tonight at 8pm (7pm c) on NBC! It's a great show that celebrates... fb.me/1kMEria4S
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) August 13, 2012

P.S. Not that I believe in that sort of thing, but if I were a Palin having the kind of week that they seem to be having, I might start to wonder if there were a higher power that wanted me to "sit down, and shut up!"

You know, if I believed in that kind of thing.