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February 10, 2010

American Militarism: Don’t Even Notice It Anymore

By Michael Shaw

Military-Sports-Hero.png

by BNN Contributor John Lucaites

As Carrie Underwood completed her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl on Sunday, there was an almost perfectly timed military fly over and no one seemed to notice.  

No one mentioned it on the CBS broadcast, the audience didn’t react, and I couldn’t even find a single photograph of it at any of the slideshows that appeared on various U.S., national media websites following the game. I’m not entirely sure what to make of that fact given how much hype as been given to the military presence at such events since 9/11, though my worry is that it is one more piece of evidence in support of the “normalization of war” thesis which suggests that we are altogether inured to the presence of the military in both our ritualized and everyday lives.

Maybe that’s what accounts for this photograph that showed up at the Guardian (though nowhere else as far as I know).

Adapted from No Caption Needed.

(photo: Charlie Riedel/AP)

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  • Marg

    I noticed it. Hubby yelled,
    “Go Airforce”!!

  • http://profile.typepad.com/catherinemccallum Catherine McCallum

    I noticed it, too. I said to my husband that since it was dark, the flyover was kind of a waste. He said if they turned on the afterburners, it would make a nice show. I saw some people in the crowd looking up, but the announcers didn’t say anything at all about it.

  • Pilgrim

    seconded. at the outdoor college hockey game at the university of wisconsin this past weekend they had an F16 flyover. i couldn’t help but think that in afghanistan or in iraq or (probably) in pakistan the response wouldn’t be a roar from the crowd but everyone running for cover.

  • http://keepittrill.blogspot.com/ Kit (Keep It Trill)

    Didn’t watch it so didn’t see it, but yes, it has been a slow, nearly imperceptible slide toward militarism. I wonder if this trend will reverse in the next eight years.
    Nah. Not with our economic problems.

  • yg

    a similar theme:
    mainstreaming torture

  • jtfromBC

    In addition to packing a lot of heat (and from pumping iron) I thought, Arnold Schwarzenegger eat your heart out.

  • ti molo

    I am reminded of a conversation I had with my sister regarding google earth. She expressed amazement and concern about its power. I replied a much earlier technology helped find missiles in Cuba in the early 60’s. The question isn’t what we can see, like the action figure above, but what we can’t. This gentlemen isn’t going to much against a person with a vest or a vehicle. He is a fierce visual display of our tax dollars hard at work. DHS valium.

  • http://www.ninaberman.com Nina

    The mainstreaming torture link is off mark. The story referenced by yg is about a severely sick soldier with real emotional problems who is taking out his aggression on his innocent daughter. This is a PTSD story, not mainstreaming torture and not at all equivalent to military fly overs and pumped up security guards. What is shocking about the YG link is that it is reported as though it is a mainstreaming torture story with emphasis on the waterboarding technique as a technique of parental discipline. You have to read quite a way through until you see that the poor girl had bruises and scratch marks and is living in fear. So much of this story from the headline to the visual is typical of tabloid exploitation about a very serious subject.

  • yg

    scott brown won despite advocating waterboarding. in the wake of the christmas bomber, there was a poll that supported waterboarding to “interrogate” the suspect. there’s no denying the idea has gained a level of acceptance that wasn’t there before. the idea is like a virus that’s infected the culture.

  • Ah-Clem

    Is this guy real? He looks like an over size action figure with the bulging veins on his arms and the shiny complection. I guess fantasy and reality have merged.

  • http://coffeeandnarcan.blogspot.com paramedicx

    just because certain types of police officers (i.. SWAT, the police officers issued M-4s), and it does say “police” big and clear on the front of his uniform, just because they have gone to a more comfortable and sensible uniform for SWAT activities (vs. the lame slacks and loafers look of most “regular” police…see the city of Cinncinati for a horrible street level uniform) it shouldn’t scare you into thinking they are “soldiers”. they are police, plain and simple. they patrol the streets you live on, they kick in the doors of drug dealers in your community. they then go home and sleep in homes right next to yours. i am a tree hugger, to the bone, who happens to be a paramedic on two seperate SWAT teams in my local area and the truth is a lot of these guys only can wear this type of uniform on the job if they have a raid planned THAT day…or, as what this case looks like, to provide security at a very high profile event that thousands of people will be at. don’t fear the police cuz in the end, if need be, you know where they live.

  • paramedicx

    p.s. love the site, first time posting a comment, but long time looker.

  • Molly

    I noticed the flyover and just figured it was part of the hootenanny.
    So, I guess I just made your point!

  • texaseditor

    I grew up in the 1950s and there were military bases large and small all over the US in those days (my father was career Navy). Wouldn’t you say that the US was more militarized then than it is today?
    And I don’t like cops dressing like soldiers.

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