On September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked by terrorists who hijacked planes and flew them directly into the World Trade Center towers in New York City. This event shaped much of recent history, and had impacts ranging from being a root cause for a war over “Weapons of Mass Destruction” that did not exist to a total overhaul over safety proceedings in airports. The attacks of 9/11 are not an unknown event to any American, and probably not to most people across the globe. The impacts of this event are felt every day, but in some ways go unnoticed. 9/11 did more than make you have to go through a metal detector at the airport and give the US a reason to invade Iraq under the guise of a War on Terror.
9/11 also had a direct impact on popular culture and opened the door for a new arena of propaganda from the US military: sports. The moment President Bush threw out the first pitch in New York when baseball came back in 2001, military propaganda had entered the world of sport and was there to stay. F-16 flyovers and military reunions are commonplace these days at sporting events. Games are sponsored by the Army or USAA and the Navy Federal Credit Union. The MLB All Star game features Medal of Honor ceremonies and montages of war films. Commercials calling people to “be more than themselves” and join a branch of the military air almost exclusively in-between snaps of football games. There is an Unlikely Connection between 9/11, and the transformation of American sport into a propaganda arm of the United States armed forces.
Here is a link to the podcast audio:
https://soundcloud.com/williambrown2k/a-terrorist-attack-and-a-new-form-of-propaganda/s-5FMURXo4trt
The connection between 9/11 and sports might be an uncomfortable one to confront for many Americans. I am the son of an immigrant mother, and even with all this nation’s faults, I am proud to be an American. But, to me pride in your nation means you want to help it grow and become better, and not that you love it in spite of its faults and that you pretend they don’t exist. The hyper-patriotism bordering on nationalism that the connections between corporate interests, military propaganda, and sport creates is a dangerous path forward. This macho Americanism is increasingly becoming the default definition of what it means to be “American.” The national narrative is being coopted by a military that wants young male sports fans to enlist, and corporations that leech of these intentionally nationalistic tendencies to be “troop friendly” and “real American brands.” We see a pretty picture of what it means to be in the military, and we don’t see the cost: death, disfigurement, displacement of innocent people in foreign lands, and forever wars that benefit the ultra-rich at the expense of those the propaganda aims to recruit. So, there is an Unlikely Connection between a terrorist attack and the shifting of sport from national pastime to propaganda machine, and this connection has led, and will continue to lead, America down a dangerous path in which we will continue to elect strong-man presidents that pander to the xenophobic and nationalistic public that this propaganda creates.