I start here because if you have been keeping up with this story through the US mainstream media alone, you might have forgotten that the currency of empire is blood. We, as Americans, often struggle with the humanization of lives in the global south that are destroyed by America’s imperial conquest. This is most evident in the ways that these lives are talked about in our media. We are as a nation obsessed with spectacle, to the point where I’m comfortable saying that when it comes to “Bread and Circuses” we Americans would rather starve at the Circus. Spectacle is America’s one true religion, and to examine the ways that spectacle plays into American militarism, it is useful to also examine America’s favorite sport of spectacle: Football. 

American Football is the perfect encapsulation of militarism. American Football has quite the militaristic edge even in the most casual parts of the sport. Hard straight passes are called bullets; a  Quarterback who has complete control over his offense is known as a field general, and who can forget the pregame flyovers performed by the US military with F-22s. I’ll put it this way American Football and American militarism are so intertwined that even the naming conventions of both celebrate the genocide of the Indigiounus people of America. That is how you end up with names like Tomahawk missiles/ Apache Helicopters and the Kansas City “Chiefs”/ the Washington “Redskins”. All of these aesthetic factors lend to the game of football its greatest likeness to the US Military. The NFL is able to sell football as the ultimate power fantasy in the same way that the US military’s domination of the global south gives Americans a sense of pride. The United States couches its militaristic propaganda inside of entertainment products so that its citizens never really have to grapple with the amount of bloodshed done in service of the empire. 

The best example of this symbiotic relationship is the story of Pat Tillman, the former NFL Safety for the Arizona Cardinals, who left the NFL to serve in the US Army Rangers after 9/11. Tillman is propped up every so often as an example of true patriotism. The US Military jumped at the chance to use his athletic prowess, as the example of the true man, the true American man, to really drive home the aesthetics of the power fantasy, and the fact that Tillman died in active service in Afghanistan only pushed this narrative to the extreme. However, there is a glaring issue with the way the NFL and US Military would like us to remember Pat Tillman. While he was killed in Afghanistan, he was killed by friendly fire just as his anti-war stance was becoming publicly known. In fact, the US Government initially lied to Pat Tillman’s mother about the circumstances regarding his death, saying that he was killed by “enemy fire”  initially, despite the fact that they were more than aware of the truth at the time. Tillman’s mother would go on to say, “They attached themselves to his virtue and then threw him under the bus. They had no regard for him as a person. He’d hate to be used for a lie. I don’t care if they put a bullet through my head in the middle of the night. I’m not stopping.”

Simply put, before the end of his life, Tillman had become disillusioned with the power fantasy, witnessing firsthand the horror of what America was doing abroad. With no buffer or pretend heroism between him and the ugly realities of America’s bloody ambition, Tillman saw the face of the empire and was disgusted. But this does not matter in the eyes of the NFL. They continue to prop up Pat Tillman’s corpse and use it as a puppet for the sake of the nation’s defining mythos. Why let the truth get in the way of a good spectacle? 

This blatant disregard of humanity in service of spectacle is potent in the way that the US media covers Venezuela and how the NFL continues to launder its reputation. If you turn on mainstream US news today, you’re likely to hear a pundit talking about the difficulty that it would take to process Venezuelan oil, but not the difficulty of destroying the lives of the Venezuelan people. It is not an accident that these channels (namely CBS and FOX) are also the ones that carry NFL programming. Our news media takes large cues on the best ways to propagandize to us from the entertainment sector. 

The debate format common on most news shows today was taken from sports television. One of the earliest forms of this type of programming comes from ESPN with shows like the First Take. Which is why you now see one of that show’s former hosts, Stephen A. Smith featuring prominently on political platforms like CNN. This approach is indicative of our attitude toward consuming news in this country.  There are traits that the best NFL broadcasters and US political propagandists share, like a sense of showmanship and an understanding of spectacle. This influence doesn’t just stay in the realm of aesthetics; instead, it creeps over to the ways that we discuss the horrific actions of America abroad. 

What strikes me more than anything is the similarity in the way we talk about US weapons and NFL offenses. When the first videos of the air strikes on Venezuelan boats were released, they played on a loop on every mainstream news channel without any strong denouncement; it seemed like a war crime highlight reel reminiscent of the SportsCenter top 10 plays of the day. As more strikes were reported and continuously shown in the same exact manner.  I couldn’t help but think of the NFL offensive scheme known as the “Air Raid Offense”. A scheme designed to overwhelm the defense by passing the ball through the air. This thought only occurred to me because I believe the only way you can justify the continued murder of people off the coast of their own country is if you believe this is some sort of game. It wasn’t until President Trump’s own chief of staff literally told Vanity Fair that the plan in Venezuela is to” keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle,” that I was able to piece together why I made that connection. It’s because of this propaganda that the US successfully creates a barrier between the working class of this nation and the oppressed workers of the world using every tactic possible to make sure we do not view them as human. The reason why the US media discusses Venezuela so flippantly is because they can with little pushback. 

The NFL is such a great mechanism for perpetuating the nation’s founding myths that even with critical analysis parts of its messaging will seep in. Being aware that you’re being poisoned isn’t the same as finding an antidote, but it does let you know you should look for one before it’s too late. However, know that while we in the imperial core search for our humanity, lives are being snatched away across the globe at the behest of the most powerful members of our society.  I’m not saying all of this to say that morality is solely dependent on the media you consume, especially not in a country with an entertainment apparatus like America’s. But our recognition of the evils this country is willing to inflict on people for profit must expand, and then we make them stop playing with us.