The Hunger Games: A Glimpse into the Progressive Left’s Endgame
Progressivism is dangerous. Those progressives who deny this are either too ignorant to see it, too brainwashed to admit it or, occasionally, complicit in the danger. The Hunger Games offers us a peek at a universe which would only be possible under radical progressivism.
For anyone blissfully unaware of this particular cultural phenomenon, The Hunger Games is a young adult novel (the first book in a trilogy) set in a post-apocalyptic world where North America is ruled by a single totalitarian government. This successor to the United States, called “Panem”, is comprised of essentially one wealthy, advanced Capitol metropolis ruling over twelve poorer districts. Every year, 12 boys and 12 girls (one of each from each district) are selected to participate in a televised, to-the-death mega-event known as “The Hunger Games”. One victor emerges and is lavished in fame and riches.
If anyone is still planning to see the movie, I will avoid revealing any spoilers or discussing the plot of this story. Instead I will focus on the political world.
To be fair, I have not actually read the full trilogy. However, it is my understanding that the author does not get in to specific details about the post-apocalyptic event. She apparently does touch on some environmental issues, and based on some of the comments she has made, it would not surprise me if the author was herself a partial believer in the progressive movement. If so, what a delicious twist of irony that a progressive would inadvertently write a story exposing one possible endgame of progressivism.
In any case, it does not matter what the author intended us to believe. An examination of the evidence of the story gives us all we need to know. If, for example, the author tried to claim that The Hunger Games was the result of radical libertarianism then she would contradict herself.
Without further ado, let us take a look at the hallmarks of progressivism which appear in this movie.
Progressive Hallmark: Big, Totalitarian Government
The government of Panem is large and totalitarian. It controls all the means of production and all the distribution of food and other resources. Although not explicitly stated in the movie, it is implied that the government controls the entire economy.
Progressivism is rooted in collectivism, and the unavoidable endgame of any collectivist ideology is communism, and finally, totalitarian communism. Collectivism creates a downward spiral of diminishing returns, which requires further control, which spawns ever-further diminished returns and even more control. The spiral is documented in Shakedown Socialism. The ultimate end result is a government so large that is has no choice but to be totalitarian.
Progressive Hallmark: The Illusion of Democracy
Panem has a “President”, but it is clear that there is no democracy. The movie does not touch on the electoral process, but the President is an all-powerful figure who seems to have captured the unquestioning adoration of the citizens of the Capitol.
Progressives will rarely openly admit to the desire to destroy democracy, but I have personally experienced a progressive telling me that President Obama should go around Congress and “just do what needs to be done”. We’re already familiar with Obama’s huge collection of czars, a quick Google search for “Obama circumvent congress” will produce a litany of examples, and Obama’s own team announced that executive orders (“two or three a week”) will play a big role in Obama’s reelection campaign.
The world of Panem exemplifies the mentality that “the ends justify the means,” which also just happens to be the core of the progressive strategy for political change.
Progressive Hallmark: The Use of Implied Threats
The President of Panem comments that a particular person should “be careful”. The threat is thinly veiled and the message is clear: “Do what I say, or bad things will happen.”
What was it Obama said to the bankers? “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.” The President used the power of his office to issue a thinly veiled threat that those bankers – private citizens in charge of sovereign corporate entities – should be careful or else. And worst of all, this made him a hero among progressives who are apparently too ignorant to recognize such a statement for what it is.
Progressive Hallmark: Ownership of Weapons is Forbidden
This is not explicitly stated but it is implied. None of the district citizens are ever shown having anything weapon-like, not even crude implements. Basic weapons used for hunting have to be kept hidden in the woods, away from the eyes of the of the Capitol.
Needless to say, a Panem-style government could never come about so long as gun ownership was as prevalent among private citizens as it is today. Do you see many conservatives advocating for abolition of gun rights? Of course not, but it’s a favorite topic of the progressives.
Progressive Hallmark: A Ruling Class
In Panem, not all citizens are poor and downtrodden. There is a ruling class – it would seem a fairly large ruling class – which resides in the metropolis of The Capitol. These people are depicted as wealthy, extravagant, and completely out of touch with reality. It is a world of pomp, circumstance, and political connectivity. People can fall out of favor quickly and suffer the consequences.
Progressives do not espouse the idea of a ruling class – in fact, they usually claim they are against such a concept. But this simply illustrates the ignorance of progressives to the reality of collectivism in general. Every collectivist society has a ruling class. Look at the former Soviet Union. Look at Communist China. Look at Nazi Germany (the Nazi party were socialists). Even something as seemingly innocuous and beneficial (to a progressive) as a trade union can give rise to an oligarchy of powerful union leaders at the expense of the general membership. From Sweden to Greece to right here in the U.S., history overflows with such examples.
Progressive Hallmark: Debauchery for the Few, Starvation for the Many
Residents of The Capitol enjoy access to fine foods, spirits, and a plethora of highly modern technology. Debauchery abounds. They live in excess, and as willing participants in the ultimate reality game show.
Progressives would argue that their ideology does not promote this. I will concede that it does not *promote* it… but it does *create* it. One should ask a simple question: if collectivism worked, why is there so much death and starvation under collectivist rule? Millions upon millions have died from starvation under socialism and communism, even while perfectly good food rotted away in government storage. Does anyone think the government officials were also starving to death along with the population? Of course not… the ruling class, their family, their friends, and their chosen accomplices were all living in the lap of debauchery while others died.
Progressive Hallmark: Collusion with / Control of the Media
It is not made clear in the movie whether or not the media is autonomous, but it’s clear that at the very least, they collude with the government.
Meanwhile, back here in reality, the collusion between the majority of the regular media and their chosen candidates is fairly obvious. It’s especially obvious on the left, and the speed with which the main-stream media collectively abandoned Hillary to support Obama only solidifies my belief that collusion already exists.
Unfortunately, collusion is not enough for the progressive left. Even now, progressives march ever-onward towards limiting conservative speech. They’ve been doing it for years by trying to control the language, and create ridiculous levels of political correctness. Even Democrat Juan Williams admits this in his book Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate. They want Limbaugh off the air. They want Fox News shut down. And these ignorant fools actually justify the involvement of government in shutting down media with which they disagree.
And let’s not forget, Obama wants an Internet kill switch… there’s no bigger government/media power grab than that!
Progressive Hallmark: Abolition of Individual Liberty
In Panem, individual liberty is nonexistent. Minors can be taken from their homes and forced to participate in a competition to the death. Even in The Capitol, people who fall out of favor fear for their lives or livelihoods. It would seem that personal property is an illusion at best.
By its very nature, collectivism destroys the concept of personal property and individual liberty. Woodrow Wilson once dismissed the inalienable right to individual liberty as nonsense. Oliver Wendell Holmes opined that liberty should not be construed “to prevent the natural outcome of a dominant opinion.”
Today, progressives carry on the assault by regularly advocating for the dissolution of contracts, seizure of private property, and excessive taxation of the wealthy… all in the name of “the greater good”.
Progressive Hallmark: Rejoicing in the Death of Other People
In The Capitol, the annual Hunger Games is a major television event and the ultimate reality show. Everybody watches. People cheer for the death of the unfavored and and survival of the favored.
If anyone questions that mankind could ever, in reality, actually enjoy such barbarism they have only to look to history. The Hunger Games event is really just a modern interpretation of the gladiatorial games which existed for around 700 years.
OK, but could we ever return to that sort of barbarism? One has only to look at the recent, untimely death of Andrew Breitbart for the answer. The Internet exploded with progressives rejoicing in Breitbart’s death. OK, that’s just one example, right?
How about:
- Ed Schultz wishing Dick Cheney were dead, and other progressives coming out to call his statement “beautifully phrased”?
- Twitter erupting in calls for death of Scott Walker
- Progressives calling for the round-up of “Tea Baggers”
- Death threats against Limbaugh following the Sandra Fluke controversy
- Salon publishing a letter to the editor insinuating that Sarah Palin should be electrocuted
- Mike Malloy hoping Beck, Limbaugh, and O’Reilly all commit suicide
- Chris Matthews waxing philosophical on a Bond-villain-esque death for Rush
- A litany of idiots on Twitter calling for the death of a variety of Republicans
I found these examples in just a few minutes on Google. I realize that progressives do not own the market on death threats, and some have been threatened with death themselves. But the prevalence of open rejoicing about the death of Breitbart is a new low and solid evidence of the decline in civility being perpetuated by the progressive movement.
Sadly, I know personally know progressives who honestly rejoice in the death, not just of conservative figures, but of regular folks who just happen to be wealthy. “Good”, they say, “they deserved it”. This may not be reflective of the ideology of the original progressive movement, but it seems to be the mentality of the newest generation of people who self-identify as progressive “soldiers”.
When otherwise regular people can find joy in the death of a fellow citizen simply because of a difference in political ideologies, how far are we, really, from a real-life Hunger Games?
© 2012, Robert James. All rights reserved.
Help HillBuzz by Shopping Amazon
"Bee" Advised!
I look forward to your comments. Please follow these simple guidelines:
- Please do not complain about your comment not yet showing up
- Stay on topic of the article ("This is OT, but..." = bad!)
- I will STING if you troll, spam, bait, swear or attack someone
The “Hunger Games” sounds a lot like North Korea’s home movies.
Magnificent summary of what the Democrat/Progressive movement truly is: A totalitarian ideology that would/will destroy anyone or anything that stands in their way.
History repeats itself. Unless We The People stop it.
“Path to Prosperity” Looks More Like a Long March:
http://washington-dispatch.com/post/2012/03/22/Path-to-Prosperity-Looks-More-Like-a-Long-March.aspx
It appears many people are getting scared of the barbarism inherent in “progressivism” and are voting with their cash to support the Second Amendment. Last Christmas I saw several articles about pink-handled guns being one of the most popular gifts. Recently Sturm-Ruger closed down new orders; their assembly lines are running full tilt to fill currently
existing orders.
“Progressive Hallmark: Ownership of Weapons is Forbidden…..”
……reminds me of the Senate Hearing scene in Iron Man 2, wherein Tony Stark tells them that “you can’t have my property!…”
Having read all three, there’s a couple points worth expanding on.
The Environment: it’s never said. Considering District 12 has a lake with drinkable water and trees and game, it’s safe to say that whatever environmental effects happened weren’t permanent. Considering that, in Appalachia, she’s still getting snow, I don’t think there’s runaway global warming. To be honest, she just doesn’t know. She knows very little about what existed before. Indeed, the limits of her knowledge seems to be old names. Biological weapons are mentioned to have existed, but so are “disintegration beams”. It’s all to vague to judge, and it could be total BS because…
The Media: The Capitol has complete and utter control over everything shown on television, both in the districts and in the Capitol itself. It keeps an iron grip on information just like it does the citizenry. This is hinted at in the first book and made crystal clear in the second and third.
Debauchery of the Few: Oh, it’s worse than you could imagine. In the second book, it’s revealed that true Capitol parties involve the use of ipecac so you can keep eating. The third book manages to top even that, but it’s a spoiler, so I’ll give no specifics. Suffice it to say, betting on the Hunger Games is about the least odious thing.
There’s quite a few parallels between the world of the Hunger Games and ancient Rome at the peak of its decadence. It could explain how Collins didn’t notice the similarities between the modern left and her book.
It shows how little insight progressives have that they don’t see the fact that they are exactly what they fear – barbarians with no regard for life who ultimately will build a dog-eat-dog society. Every “progressive” believes they – or the people they support (Obama) – will be benevolent dictators, creating a patronistic society and caring for “the people” like they are children. They depend on the existence of common decency and a shared morality – two things that “progressives” hate and are trying to destroy. Progressive thinking, like “new math”, is both an oxymoron and creates the inability to add one and one and to come up with two.
I was somewhat disturbed after seeing this movie because I know how Hollywood likes to foreshadow the future with their movies. It’s sinister at best.
My take on the movie was how the elites in government view the rest of the populace as nothing but animals. Their joy is found in watching those they perceive as beneath them, hunt and kill each other. It’s made worse because they make CHILDREN do the hunting and killing. It’s horrifying.
I wouldn’t worry too much about the foreshadowing. The Hunger Games as a complete work is unique, but the underlying framework bears much resemblance to previous works such as Lord of the Flies and 1984.
I do not believe we will find ourselves in a country where children are sent to kill each other for televised sport. But I do believe there are some – probably a disturbingly large number, in truth – progressives who would actually enjoy a death match between right-leaning talking heads. If Limbaugh and Beck were to fight to the death, I think we’d all be surprised at how many progressives would welcome it.
I posted on social media that between Hunger Games and Harry Potter, we will have an entire generation of Small Government Libertarians, just in the nick of time. I also said that kids will choose Freedom over Hope. A very Liberal Jewish-Athiest Baby Boomer family friend commented “Can’t we have both? They are not mutually exclusive.”
I posted this for his benefit. The Spark is Hope. The Flame is Freedom…
http://www.ign.com/videos/2012/03/15/hunger-games-clip-hope
“Recent, untimely death of Andrew Breitbart”…
In black ops circles they use another word…
Just sayin.
I find the article completely ridiculous. I saw the movie and the entire time I found myself comparing it to the GOP. Clearly the GOP desires to separate the underdog from the 1%; keeping young people from getting educated so they can be more easily fooled (college is only for the elite, cutting funding to schools); keep women in their place and make sure they have many babies to serve the rich; keep the poor from progressing by denying them any assistance or medical care; definitely the GOP preference for smaller government where the true ruler is money. Progressives? No, I don’t think so. The GOP are the ones who want to destroy people’s rights and trample on the poor and the elderly; deny women their rights and glorify corporations and want to destroy the Earth. Your comparison doesn’t even make sense.
Really? How about you come back with some actual evidence of your ridiculous accusations before attempting to sway hearts or minds.
In Panem, the government was in charge of distributing food. I’ve never heard anyone accuse the GOP of wanting to do that.
In Panem, the government controls the media. Which party introduced the “fairness doctrine”? Oh yeah, the Democrats. Who screams to the top of their lungs every time a conservative says something controversial, but then are strangely silent when one of their own says something just as bad or worse? Oh yeah, the Democrats.
Does the GOP want to take away weapons from the public? Nope, but the Democrats do, ESPECIALLY the Progressive left.
Keeping women in their place? PUH-LEEEZE. You’re so far off base on this one you’re in a completely different stadium. The first woman elected to Congress was a Republican. In fact, the first FOUR women elected to the House were all Republicans, and the Democrats didn’t elect their first woman for eight more years.
Conservatives don’t want to keep young people from getting educated, but they do want to keep young people from getting INDOCTRINATED, which is quite obviously one of the main reasons the Progressives continue to move MORE power and MORE money to the Federal level, despite mountains of evidence showing it’s better to leave control as local as possible. How great it would be for the progressive left to continue to pop out silly little soldiers like you who blindly follow everything they say!
What a bunch of right-wing morons…
badbranchcharlie@gmail.com