On the Road to Hunger Games

On the Road to Hunger Games
Plato envisioned a world where an elite group of philosopher kings would rule. He argues that a specific education available to the few would prepare these philosopher kings for their duties.  Such a group would be insulated from those they govern and rule by pure theory.


Have we seen such an elite develop? President Obama graduated from Harvard Law School. President George W. Bush (M.B.A. '75) and Presidents John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy are also Harvard grads. And then there is Yale where Al Gore, Bill and Hillary Clinton matriculated.

Graduates of the London School of Economics include George Soros, Janet Napolitano, Cherie Blair (wife of former PM Tony Blair), and John F. Kennedy. 
Graduates of the London School of Economics include George Soros, Janet Napolitano, Cherie Blair (wife of former PM Tony Blair), and John F. Kennedy. 

Associated with those politicians, are media leaders. Has the media assumed the role of philosopher kings, the moral arbiters, of our society? That is what some obviously think. 


As Mika  Brzezinski said so tellingly,  "He is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts," she said about Trump. "And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think."
"And that, that is our job, " she noted, referring to the media. 
Yale Media Notables
Stephen Vincent Benet, 1919 – poet (“John Brown’s Body”), short-story writer.William Rose Benet, 1907 --- poet, critic, author (The Reader’s Encyclopedia).William F. Buckley Jr., 1949 – columnist, author and TV host.Jack Ford, 1972 – network host (“20-20,” “Good Morning America,” weekend “Today Show”), former NBC legal correspondent. Jeffrey Greenfield, 1967 Law – TV journalist (CNN, ABC).John R.Hersey, 1936 – novelist (“A Bell For Adano”) and historian (“Hiroshima”).Archibald MacLeish, 1915 – poet, playwright (“J.B.”), Librarian of Congress.David G.McCullough, 1955 – historian (“Truman,” “John Adams,” “The Greater Journey”).David Martin, 1965 – CBS Pentagon correspondent.Bob McKeown, 1971 – CBC TV host (“The Fifth Estate”), former CBS, NBC correspondent.Lawrie Mifflin, 1973 – senior editor, The New York Times.Lynn Nottage M.F.A. 1989 – 2009 Pulitzer Prizewinner in drama.Stone Phillips, 1977 – TV host (“Dateline,” NBC).Calvin M.Trillin, 1957 – writer, New Yorker magazine.Garry Trudeau, 1970 – political cartoonist (“Doonesbury”).Thornton Wilder, 1920 – playwright (“Our Town”), novelist.Robert Woodward, 1965 – assistant managing editor, The Washington Post; author (“All the President’s Men,” “The War Within”). Fareed Zakaria, 1986 – editor-at-large, Time Magazine; TV host (“Global Public Square,” CNN).
Harvard Media Notables
Kurt Andersen ’76, Editor and writer, New York magazine; Former editor-in-chief, Spy magazine
Michael Barone ’66, Senior writer, U.S. News & World Report
Jim Bell ’89, Executive Producer, Today, NBC; Former Harvard football player
Soma Golden Behr ’61, Assistant Managing Editor, The New York Times
James Brown ’73, Sports Broadcaster, CBS Television; Three-year Harvard basketball letterman
Jim Cramer ’77 LAW ’84, Host of CNBC’s Mad Money
Lou Dobbs ’67, Anchor and television host, CNN
Linda Greenhouse ’68, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times who covers the Supreme CourtCatherine Herridge '87, Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel, women's squash letterwinner
Dave Ignatius ’72, Managing editor, International Herald TribuneWilliam Kristol ’73, Editor and publisher, The Weekly StandardSeamus Malin ’62, National soccer commentator; Former Harvard soccer player; Former director, Harvard International OfficeSoledad O’Brien ’88, Anchor, CNN’s American MorningLinda McVeigh Mathews ’67 JD ’72, Former national editor, The New York Times; First female managing editor of The Harvard CrimsonFrank Rich ’71, Editorial columnist, The New York TimesEvan Thomas '73, Editor at Large Newsweek; Author, historian, reporter; Visiting professor at HarvardChris Wallace ’69, Journalist, host, Fox News SundayJeff Zucker ’86, Executive producer, NBC News

What ideas percolate through the rarified atmosphere of these elite schools? Among those whom the elite among us consider the most well-educated and therefore the most qualified persons to rule? Would they be Plato's idea of philosopher kings?  Would they share a contempt for the “deplorables” among us?

What happens when there is no diversity of opinion? When the only diversity and tolerance means only race and gender?
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.” ― George Orwell, 1984





Do we now see the advance of Panem on the coasts and in pockets throughout our country?
Have our children been so brainwashed through the national control of curriculum in those areas and on college campuses as to believe that nationalism/patriotism is bad, that only those of certain mindset understand the true issues that threaten our world?
The education system has inculcated a disdain for dead white men whose western ideals and theories on democracy, capitalism and freedom produced stable societies that encourage creative economic development and the free expression of ideas. The British Empire brought these concepts to their client states. When independence movements cast them out of Africa, for example, tribalism returned, roads deteriorated, industrial buildings rusted, disease became rampant, clean water and education for all children diminished as more people fell into poverty and gangs took control.
Could radical environmentalism be the vehicle now being used to make our people willing to hand over power to an international unelected governing body favored by those associated with George Soros, Hillary Clinton and others in the international Non Governmental Organizations of the world who seek to levy taxes on carbon emissions. First they create a sense of crisis and then move in using the courts to establish the mandate for their own agenda.
To whom would one pay these emissions fees and who determines the distribution of monies so collected? How much enforcement power would go to these unelected officials?

To whom would one pay these emissions and who determines the distribution of monies so collected? How much enforcement power would go to these unelected officials?

President Trump euphemistically calls it The Swamp. They exist in the shadows and now rage against the light being shown upon them. They attempt to silence us by intimidation. 

“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
So where does the destruction of statues of the Old South apply here? 
And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. "Who controls the past," ran the Party slogan, "controls the future: who controls the present controls the past." And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. "Reality control," they called it: in Newspeak, "doublethink."― George Orwell, 1984



“...most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution.”― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
And what about the intimidation of those with differing views?

“Taking the kids from our districts, forcing them to kill one another while we watch – this is the Capitol's way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion. Whatever words they use, the real message is clear. "Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen."--Suzanne Collins, Hunger Games
“Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth.” ― Aldous Huxley, Brave New World


“Big Brother is Watching You.” 

― George Orwell, 1984

And so, Panem is established.