Deterritorialized America,” is a translation of that moment at UCLA when I broke away from the military-industrial psychological conditioning that shackles American society.
While there is a long history of the relationship of sport and war, American sporting events are the apotheoses of this. U.S. military power and technological supremacy in the form of fighter jet fly-overs, helicopters hovering, parachuting exhibitions, booming gun salutes, epic video tributes to the troops, even cameos from jumbo bomber planes are the norm in American sports arena. Depending on the aircraft, flights are either slow, allowing for maximum appreciation (festishization) of that particular war machine’s aesthetic qualities, or come at a high velocity—the faster, sexier fighter jets usually blowing by, flexing their proverbial muscles. The effect of all this is the aestheticization of state sponsored violence. The flames of nationalism stoked every weekend across the heartlands. Less common, but equally dramatic are the mock invasions of playing fields performed by parachuting elite commando units like the
However, that UCLA game in a newly post 9/11 world yielded an awakening in me to the power of military spectacle and direct proof of how exploitation of mob mentality can instantly mobilize a wounded people. It illustrated the extent to which we Americans had become inured by the constant encroachment of the martial upon the social body. “God Bless
81