I finally saw Avatar. Needless to say, the 4″ LCD in the back of seat 24E on Delta flight 6 to LHR was probably not optimal viewing conditions, but my Skullcandy headphones work awesome on airplanes, but I digress.
I’m not going to bore you with a review (plenty of other libertarians have already done this). And I’m not going to bore you with a summary of the story. Here’s just my thoughts, much as I put them on paper halfway through the movie—unable to wait for fear of losing the thoughts.
This is how it works: when people are sitting on shit that you want, you make them your enemies. Then you justify taking it.
The basic premise of the story in Avatar is exactly how empires have always behaved. And it is exactly how the corporate interests which control the world’s governments operate today: Exploit some people and/or resources (preferably beyond the fictional lines which define our national “borders”). Take everything from them—materials, resources, labor, life, dignity; and get drunk on the profits.
The movie saddened me, not because it was a particularly compelling story (although I do think it was a very good movie, c’mon, is “unobtanium” the best they could come up with?), but because I understand that this “fiction” is anything but.
Avatar is not an allegory. It is not a clever fairy-tale tree-hugger imagination, dramatization, or exaggeration. Look at the history of the world, the rise and fall of empire after empire. The names of the people and places may well have changed, but the story has played on a thousand stages.
