Author: R J Adams

The embodiment of everything that’s sick about America. US Republican Congressman Todd Akin, was asked recently if abortion should be permissible for women victims of rape.

Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”^[1]

Until Americans stop voting these pseudo-religious idiots into high office, this nation will never recover its integrity, or its standing in the world.

^{[1] “The Jaco Report: August 19, 2012” FoxNews, August 19th 2012}

^{My thanks to “WiseWebWoman” for ‘the nod’.}

“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

– Nobel Peace Prize, 1992

Betty Williams

– Nobel Peace Prize, 1977″

“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.”

Lest we forget CNN’s in-glorious “Shock and Awe” evening ~ Baghdad, March 20th 2003.

^{* My Bold}

^{Thanks once again to “Vineyard Views” for bringing this to my attention.}

CBS Evening News temporary anchor, Bob Schieffer tonight expressed outrage that an estimated two and a half million Syrians have so far been displaced, wounded, or killed as a result of the civil war raging in that country.

^{Bob Schieffer}

He laid the blame squarely on Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad.

That figure is fractionally more than half the estimated number of Iraqis displaced (4-5 million) after the US invaded Iraq in 2003. But, wait! The Iraqi figure doesn’t include the (approx) 655,000 civilians slaughtered in that conflict (Lancet figure – death certificates supported in 92% of cases), and an indeterminate, but obviously huge number of Iraqis wounded.

In 2007, the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki quoted a figure of five million Iraqi children orphaned as a result of the conflict.^[1]

Where was Schieffer’s outrage then? I guess the Iraqis were simply playing for the wrong team?

Bashar al-Assad still has a long, long, way to go as a war criminal to beat the record of US President George Walker Bush, and UK Prime Minister Anthony Charles Lynton Blair.

^{[1] “Occupation’s Toll: 5 Million Iraqi Children Orphaned” AlterNet, December 18th 2007}