In the story “The Hunger Games”, Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, is poor but happy (I think) and skilled with a bow and arrow. Every year there is some sort of hunting event and whichever participant in the hunting event wins, their District gets fed for a year. I think that’s how the story goes.
Eventually Katniss finds herself participating in the yearly event, hunted like an animal and needs to stay alive so her District and all the poor Districts all around can be saved and re-populate the Earth, or something like that.
There is a character, Effie Trinket, who chaperones Katniss on her journey to Capitol City. Effie turns out to be a spy in the resistance or something. Effie dresses outlandishly and is my favorite character because she has a little bit of an arc and is multi dimensional, sort of. Come on. It’s a movie made for 12 year old American girls. There will be very little character depth.
She uses her valuable position to undermine the authoritarian fascists like Donald Sutherland and Julianne Moore who play President Snow and President Alma Coin.
When the Inauguration for Joe Biden/Kamala Harris was streamed, Lady Gaga showed up dressed like Effie Trinket, even down to the Mocking-Jay pin. Everyone either reacted with delight or rage, depending on if you’re into fascism or not.
Let’s not get it twisted. Gaga is no Effie Trinket. Underneath Effie’s colorful exterior and seemingly self-interested motives to steal the show at all costs, is a simmering hatred for her owners. Underneath Gaga, is an empty shell of a half-human who deserves no love or attention from you.
As mentioned, Katniss represents District 12, which also happens to be San Francisco, represented by Nancy Pelosi. Obviously if making the mocking comparison, she’s Alma Coin.
The San Francisco/DC bizarre coupling now obviously represents “Capitol City.” The rules for me are not for thee and the wine flows aplenty. Access to everything extravagant and beautiful is at the fingertips of those who live in lavish luxury.
I don’t know how many billionaires per block are in DC but in San Francisco there is a billionaire about every 80 blocks. Outside of DC and its twin Capitol, San Francisco, is a stark reality that the majority of our citizens face: poverty.
The slicing up and portioning of the country are called “Districts” in Hunger Games. In real life, as we discuss here in Deconstruction, they are called “Interstate Compacts.”
Keeping in time with Collins’ (no relation) dystopian story, we have a megalomaniacal villain who owns all of the United States farmland. What will become of that land and who will it feed?
I don’t know what else to say. Our country is a mockery of anything wholesome, democratic or social. And just like in the Hunger Games when the children were released to the wild to kill or be killed, there were wealthy investors betting on their death and failure.
May the odds ever be in your favor.
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