Mocking jay: The Revolution will be televised

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Hunger Games, Mockingjay, Part I, directed Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth.

How to build a revolution: Start with a ty­ rannical, revengeful president with a well-armed military; add a charismatic, self-effac­ ing, yet heroic persona whose homeland was destroyed by his government; enhance with a wise, capable rebel president of the people; mix well with a savvy production team whose producer is asked by said president to create a revolutionary leader from a reluctant hero.

“Mockingjay” starts where “Catching Fire” ended. Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) had been rescued by rebels. Her boyfriend, Peeta, her partner and co-winner in the first Games, was captured. There is an ongoing war now between Panem (the country of the rebels) and the Capital. The people who escaped and defected from the Capital have gone under­ ground—way underground—like in an in­ verted high-rise building, in a maze of high­ ly technical “cities” or enclaves, which are reached by banks of descending elevators.

Capital President Snow (Donald Suther­ land) had fabricated a food and water short­ age under the guise of population control, which, of course does not affect the rich (call them the 1 percenters). It kills thousands.

Snow seeks revenge after the accidental hero, Katniss, who bends rules to the delight of the wealthy viewers, totally destroyed the president’s and the rich’s Survivor-like superpopular reality TV show, “Hunger Games,” with a well-aimed arrow (the end of “Catch­ ing Fire.” So he retaliates by bombing cities and districts, killing, wounding and disap­ ... Outrage (continued from page 10: “The militarization of the police”) percent higher than the county average, and 51% of homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Despite the Black majority, the mayor is white, and five of the six city council members are white.

Studies have shown that Ferguson has the highest rate of warrants issued in the state for a city of its size, as well as fines collected and non-traffic viola­ tions filed. According to a Reuters re­ port, “Municipal court fines, most of which arise from motor vehicle viola­ tions, accounted for 21 percent of gen­ eral fund revenue, and at $2.63 million last year, were the equivalent of more than 81 percent of police salaries be­ fore overtime.” In other words, the city’s white rulers exist by ripping-off African Americans, with Ferguson’s cops play­ ing the leading role!

A human rights report by Amnesty International in Ferguson, conducted from Aug. 14 to Aug. 22, found that “nu­ merous human rights abuses” included the use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and high-frequency acoustic devices to dis­ perse crowds—which can cause the loss of balance, ruptured eardrums, and nausea.

The Amnesty report called on the U.S. government to “do much more to ad­ dress systemic racial discrimination and ensure policing practices nation­ wide are brought into line with inter­ national human rights standards.” The report also noted that Ferguson cops kept their guns pointed at the Amnesty delegation.

In the meantime, the Obama admin­ istration has remained neutral in the pearing the people of Panem.

Katniss meets the president of Panem, Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) and her advisor, Plu­ tarch (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Coin wants her to start a revolution—which will be filmed and beamed to the masses. But apolitical Katniss only wants to rescue Peeta. A trip to District 12, her home, destroyed by the Capital, changes her mind. It looks as bombed out as today’s news clips show of cit­ ies in Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. Plutarch works on the propaganda film, and Katniss agrees to play along—with con­ ditions. Plutarch films her in the midst of a real battle with bombs going off, buildings burning, and aircraft streaming overhead. It’s a propaganda war, like the one conjured up in “Wag the Dog,” with Katniss as the secret weapon. As an Entertainment Weekly writer put it, “a Che Guevara T-shirt made flesh.” Chris Nashawaty of Entertainment Weekly wrote: “Director Francis Lawrence and his writers deserve some credit for daring to sneak any political cheekiness into a movie this corporate,” though he went on to say that their hands were still tied too tightly. But I thought the film got a “subversive” po­ litical message across rather well—despite being padded with boring talking scenes that do nothing to further the story.

It’s unfortunate that Hollywood chopped the film into two parts (to make even more money on the sequel). And so, we must wait a year for “Mockingjay, Part Two,” to see whether the revolution is successful. n struggle against racism in Ferguson, despite the strong support that the president still garners in the Black com­ munity. Inaction by his appointee, out­ going U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, represents a new low in the Democratic Party’s betrayal of its key constituent. In fact, Democratic politicians, Black or white, fashioned their November cam­ paigns specifically to avoid all reference to Ferguson in campaign speeches!

Holder has stated that Wilson will not be tried on civil rights charges. The At­ torney General instead promised to launch a civil rights investigation of the Ferguson Police Department—even though the Obama administration has been reluctant to prosecute police on human rights charges.

The death toll from racist police vio­ lence across the U.S. grows with mindnumbing regularity. Whether it’s the

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SOCIALIST ACTION Tony Savino / Socialist Action