American Militarism: Don’t Even Notice It Anymore

photo: Charlie Riedel/AP

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.