Rant on North Korea in light of "The Interview"

The story of a potential North Korean hack into Sony Pictures headquartered in California in obstinacy to the movie “The Interview” reminds me of the neurosis of any oligarchy or despots wielding their power through threats or worse the systematic ignorance of the public.  I am drawn to recall quotes from Christopher Hitchens on North Korea including his poignant parallel of his own travels to the lost state to George Orwell’s 1984 in his book “Why Orwell Matters.”

The idea that Americans could feel the grip of a totalitarian state through the simple loss of a motion picture after a traditional advertising campaign to get us hot and bothered echoes the hyperbolic nature of what we consider tyranny in context to American civil liberties.  We most recently read a long-known state of torture of foreign citizens under the arm of quashing terror wherein twenty seven out of twenty seven failed to meet the threshold of preventing terror at the cost of an invaluable bank of compassion our traditional aspirations to foster patriotism once portended as a standard to combat the ilk of Hitler, Stalin, or Mao. 

The neurotic state of North Korea’s leadership Hitchens describes bears witness to the nadir of human corruption by power.  It is Tolkien’s ring enlivened.  Orwell’s 1984 describes Newspeak, outlawed sex, snuffed communication, a constant eye of Big Brother, and re-education leaving with the classic scene of a cage of rats placed upon the protagonist’s head to gnaw his face only for him to sacrifice everything to escape. 

The Republican Party often ignites the fervor of the more ignorant portion of its fox den by dubbing the current president a tyrant to sustain the joint-party of obstructionism.  America is many things, but we are nowhere close to 1984.  What we have is complacency to vote against our self-interest at the lure of ungraspable wealth anesthetized by entertainment to be docile to sustain an oligarchy.  I find it ironic the loss of a small serving of that fun-time poses the question of what world we actually live in compared to the brands of lunacy in the two-countries.  There are many things in need of change in America, but we can protest or stay home.  We can not make the art, not sing, not dance, not write, not film.  Poets fight the war of consciousness.  I invite you and applaud your fight.  Make art.  Some days I find it more sad that America does not need near the level of propaganda to keep power in the same hands generation after generation. 

Quotes from Christopher Hitchens on North Korea