Hunger Games Is Fiction No More (Connecting the Dots: The Hunger Games, Gun Control, Al Gore, Obama, Nation of Islam & Soros Funding, All Networking)
The
Epoch Times
By
Jeffrey Tucker
Opinion
Commentary
When
“The Hunger Games” first came out more than a decade ago,
the dystopia it presented was compelling and sophisticated but also
implausible. Lately I wondered how it held up and rewatched the first three
films (I don’t know about the others).
My
goodness, it was more prescient than it seemed at the time, including the
stratification of wealth, the decadence of privilege, the abuse of power, and
the complications of resistance. This series exists on many levels, but strikes
me as one of the more revealing fictional stories that forecast the overlapping
of material decadence, desperate poverty, and the use of fear as a propaganda
device.
As
a political allegory, it covers the same intellectual terrain as Aristotle’s
“Politics,” Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” and de Jouvenel’s “On Power,” but in a
way that is more penetrating for readers and viewers, and particularly relevant
for our times.
The
entire series deals with the greatest conflict in history, that between liberty
and power. Those fortunate enough to live in District One, the center of the
empire, and socialize with the best, eat well, dress in increasingly
preposterous ways (hair dyed in unnatural colors), follow all the trends, go to
the right parties, and try to keep with the social scene.
Each
of the districts below perform their assigned economic function of keeping the
center living in luxury. Borders between them are strictly enforced. Your place
in the socio-political order is determined by accidents of birth with no broad
economic mobility.
In
order to maintain the order and keep rebellion at bay, the leaders in District
One hold an annual extravaganza that combines fashion, violent games, and
intense political messaging of the dangers of rebellion. Each district is
required to send two randomly assigned tributes to the games where they face
off in an arena in a battle for their lives with only one winner, as the people
at the top watch with intense fascination.
The
sheer spectator power of the event is what psychologically ties the elites to
the social and political structure, while the fear of being called up as
tribute for the games is what impresses upon the population the need for
compliance. The scenario is consistent with Carl Schmitt’s principle of the
friend/enemy distinction in his “Concept of the Political,”
which, he argues, must finally be made real by the shedding of blood.
Those
who have followed the story until the final installment might have supposed
that the problem was rather stark. One man, President Snow, held all the power.
He was a cruel man and he used every means to keep his power. He sat at the
center of a capital city that pillaged the districts of resources and held
power through fear.
If
that is all there is to the problem, the solution would be clear: President
Snow has to go. With the source of the problem out of the way, all will be
well. This was the thinking of District 12 heroine Katniss Everdeen for most of
the series. And one can see why she would believe this. Snow is a ghastly
figure, and he was personally responsible for vast cruelty and crimes. He
deserves to be overthrown and for justice to prevail.
Plus,
she supposes that everyone she knows shares her vision of the final goal: a
normal life without oppression, without violence, without pillaging, without
rigid geographic and caste classifications, and without televised death matches
orchestrated to instill fear in the population.
There
was more going on beneath the surface. The capital city of Panem was an
autocracy but also the center of a nation-state, which is to say that the
bureaucracy, the administrative apparatus, a standing military, a media
enterprise, and its methods of rule could survive the death of the leader. This
is the difference between a personal state and a nation state. The power
apparatus of the nation state seeks immortality, a continuing life regardless
who happens to head it.
President
Snow is the paranoid autocrat who, Katniss comes to discover, is himself
entrapped in a system that he must maintain while seeking a successor. There
are masses in the capital to keep entertained, potential betrayers within his
own ranks, and rebellions constantly brewing. He knows for certain that his
rule is fragile and that an iron hand is the only way to maintain this unstable
system.
Another
problem is that the system itself is attractive to competitors who long not for
freedom as such but rather to inhabit the commanding heights. The problem of
creating a world without power, then, becomes more complicated than the
overthrow of the existing autocrat.
In
every revolutionary situation, those who are most motivated to achieve the aim
are those who seek to hold power themselves. So long as the machinery of legal
violence exists, there will be those who seek to control it—and, as Hayek
said, it is usually the worst who make it to the top and spend their lives
seeking to get there. Therefore, it is not just those who rule but also those
who seek to rule who constitute a threat to liberty. This is how the existence
of powerful nation-states ends up creating multiple layers of dangers.
This
is the story of how Rousseau became Robespierre, how Russian liberalism became
Bolshevism, and how so many meritorious movements against colonialism and
corporatism have ended in dictatorship, tyranny, and famine.
Anyone
who seeks to end oppression has to keep his or her eye out for those who would
use the chaos and confusion of political upheavals to seize and exercise power
in the future. This is what Katniss learns, as she gradually discovers that her
one-time allies had become skilled in the conduct of war, appreciative of the
status that comes with leadership, and lust for exercising state power
themselves.
She
comes to discover this dark truth about the rebel armies when the leader
herself admits that she has every intention of retaining the Hunger Games as a
mechanism of control following a successful coup.
Through
this shocking revelation, Katniss learns that great lesson of history: It is
not just despots who need to be kept at bay, but also those who most
passionately seek to overthrow despots too. In order to realize liberty, you
need more than just loathing of those in charge; you need the ascendance of the
love of true liberty itself and a system in place that guards that liberty
against every attempt to overthrow it.
Once
Katniss catches on to what is happening around her, she has to make a decision.
Does she comply with the dictates of the increasingly centralized revolutionary
forces or take a different turn and go her own way? The urgency of this
decision is what turns “The Hunger Games” from being a simple Manichean
struggle between one good and one evil into a real-life version of a Massive
Multiplayer Online game.
There
are many applications to this principle in history but one might pertain to
U.S. foreign policy. In the 1980s, the United States sought to drive the
Soviets out of Afghanistan by supporting Islamic fundamentalists,
who were then called “freedom fighters,” and they were given weapons and
massive logistical support. After the Soviets left, the rebellion gradually
metastasized into the Taliban, who ruled with an iron hand, and were then
overthrown after 9/11, leading to 20 years of U.S. occupation, which stirred
resentment among the population, and a final deal that put the Taliban back in
charge, who enforce their rule with the weaponry that the United States left
behind in a chaotic withdrawal.
That’s
a one-paragraph summary of three decades of incredible folly.
This
saga coincided with a similar situation in Iraq after 2003,
following a decade of embargoes, intermittent bombing, and harsh sanctions. The
overthrow of the once-allied dictator Saddam Hussein brought to power not
liberty-loving constitutionalists, but rather a Shiite majority that oppressed
in turn the Sunni minority that Hussein had represented. The Sunni insurgency
against the Iraqi state caused a bloody civil war in Iraq that eventually
spilled over into the rebellion against Syrian dictator Bashar
al-Assad and
mutated into the Islamic State. Over the course of 25 years, Iraq went from a
defeated and relatively quiescent state to a seething hotbed of poverty,
violence, and hatred.
Fast
forward to the Libyan case where the
overthrow of another dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, sparked what
seemed like a populist blowback, but was really part of a series of “color
revolutions” that manipulated social media and the mainstream press into
following U.S. foreign policy priorities. Combined with all the other
interventions, and alongside a surreptitious attempt to boot the Syrian
overlord, the next stage saw the spread of ISIS into a
region-wide insurgency that intended regional rule through bloodshed, which was
finally put down by the Trump administration.
The
point is that attempts to purge the world of an existing evil raise the very
risky prospect of creating even more. And it’s not just about foreign regimes.
A famous trait of democracy is that the urge to kick out one group of leaders
is necessarily tied to bringing another group into power. The latter are often
no better and sometimes worse than the former. This is one of the reasons for
so much political nostalgia in U.S. politics: a look back almost always
provides a better picture than a look at the present.
The
simple lesson of “The Hunger Games” is that powerful people can do
terrible things. We must resist in order to stop them. The more complicated
lesson is that powerful institutions themselves are corrupt, and that there
will always be those lacking in moral scruples who are willing to assume the
mantle of power.
That
is precisely why the Founding Fathers struggled so hard to put in place a
framework for rule that guaranteed, as a first priority, the rights and
liberties of the people: a Republic if the people can keep it.
There
is general agreement today that the United States does stand at the precipice
of something huge because the existing disequilibrium is simply not sustainable
on multiple levels. The key question is always: what kind of society do we want
to live in? Everyone needs a clear and compelling answer to that question
today. There is no more standing on the sidelines to watch the action from the
outside, like spectators in the Hunger Games.
At
the end of the movie, we see Katniss out of battle gear, sitting in the grass,
at her home, being bathed by sunlight, tending to her own life, cultivating her
own personal vision of freedom, out of the limelight. Ruling herself, not
others, and having regained a normal life. Perhaps that scene offers the best
lesson of all.
Connecting
the Dots:
Jennifer
Lawrence is an actor in The Hunger Games (2012), The
Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay -
Part 1, and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2.
Stanley Tucci is
an actor in The Hunger Games (2012), The Hunger Games:
Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, The
Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 and was a trustee at the Sundance
Institute.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for
the Sundance Institute.
George Soros was the chairman
for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Kenneth D. Cole is
a trustee at the Sundance Institute and married to Maria
Cuomo Cole
Maria Cuomo Cole is
married to Kenneth D. Cole and a trustee at the Brady
Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Brady
Center to Prevent Gun Violence is a “Gun Safety, Gun Control”
group for guns.
Cindy
Harrell-Horn is a trustee at the Sundance Institute and a
director at the Climate Reality Project.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder
for Sundance Institute and the Climate Reality Project.
George Soros was the chairman for
the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Albert A. Gore Jr. is
the chairman for the Climate Reality Project, was the co-founder
& chairman for Current Media, LLC, sued Al Jazeera
and In 2024, Gore was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S.
president Joe Biden.
Current TV was
a division of the Current Media, LLC.
Al Jazeera acquired Current
TV.
Syrian
Electronic Army reportedly hacked Al Jazeera, the Human
Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Open Society Foundations was a funder
for the Human Rights Watch and the Amnesty International.
George Soros is the founder
& chairman for the Open Society Foundations, was the chairman
for the Foundation to Promote Open Society, and a benefactor for
the Human Rights Watch.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for
the Human Rights Watch and the Amnesty International.
Bashar al-Assad is
supporting the Syrian Electronic Army a hacker group, the
president of Syria, and permitted the rise of the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) in Syria.
Muammar
Abu Minyar Al-Qadhafi was Saif Al Islam Al-Qadhafi’s father,
the Libya leader, and said he loved Condoleezza Rice &
kept scrapbook of her photos.
Condoleezza Rice said Muammar
Abu Minyar Al-Qadhafi loved her & kept scrapbook of her photos and
is an overseer at the International Rescue Committee.
Foundation to Promote Open Society was a funder for
the International Rescue Committee.
George Soros was the chairman for the Foundation
to Promote Open Society.
International
Rescue Committee is a partner with the ONE Campaign.
Michelle Obama was
an advocate for the ONE Campaign, and a lawyer for Sidley
Austin LLP.
Barack Obama was
an intern at Sidley Austin LLP, the candidate for the 2008
Barack Obama presidential campaign, and a parishioner at the Trinity
United Church of Christ (Chicago).
African
American Religious Leadership Committee was an advisory group for
the 2008 Barack Obama presidential campaign.
Jeremiah A.
Wright Jr. was a member of the African American Religious
Leadership Committee and is a senior pastor at the Trinity United
Church of Christ (Chicago).
Trumpeter
Newsmagazine is a publication for the Trinity United Church of
Christ (Chicago).
Louis Farrakhan was
awarded the 2007 Jeremiah Wright Jr. Trumpeter award for the Trumpeter
Newsmagazine and is the acting head for the Nation of Islam.
Resources:
Past Research
Jennifer
Lawrence Says Hurricanes Are Punishment For Electing Trump (Past Research on the Hunger Games)
Saturday,
September 9, 2017
https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2017/09/jennifer-lawrence-says-hurricanes-are.html
World
View: Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian Army Once Again Close to Collapse (Past Research on Bashar al-Assad)
Monday,
September 5, 2016
https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2016/09/world-view-bashar-al-assads-syrian-army.html
Smaller
Bites – Brady Campaign (Connecting the Dots: Brady Center to Prevent Gun
Violence, Brady Campaign, Gun Control, America Votes & The Soros Funded
Sundance Institute, All Networking) (Past Research
on the Brady
Campaign)
Tuesday,
November 22, 2022
https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2022/11/smaller-bites-brady-campaign-connecting.html
HuffPo:
Turn Off Your Christmas Lights (Past Research on the
Nation of Islam)
Saturday,
December 26, 2015
https://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2015/12/huffpo-turn-off-your-christmas-lights.html
Obama's
ring: 'There is no god but Allah' (Past Research on
Barack Obama’s Ring)
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Al Gore
Awards
and honors
Gore
is the recipient of a number of awards, including the Nobel Peace Prize
(together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in
2007,[260][261][262] a Primetime Emmy Award for Current TV in 2007, a Webby
Award in 2005, the Dan David Prize in 2008[263] and the Prince of Asturias
Award in 2007 for International Cooperation.[264] He was elected to the
American Philosophical Society in 2008.[265] He also starred in the 2006
documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary
in 2007 and wrote the book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of
Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, which won a Grammy Award for Best
Spoken Word Album in 2009.[266][267] In 2024, Gore was awarded
the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. president Joe Biden.
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