Comrade Homer Simpson

Our generation is the most radical in decades. Hundreds of thousands of militant youth all around the world fight against capitalist domination: in Seattle, Prague, Genoa, Jakarta, Buenos Aires, Geneva, and also in Berlin.

Principally responsible for this are the Simpsons.

Comrade Simpson is one of the best communist agitators in histoy. Every day at 7pm Red Homer tells us about the merciless struggle of the workers against exploitation and the glorious socialist society of the future.

How else could one explain the representation of the capitalist class on the Simpsons? Mr. Burns is not exactly a tribute to the generosity of the bosses. He is old, crippled, without friends, evil though and though. Like every capitalist he is prepared to steal candy from a baby or block out the sun when profits are at stake.

In 1990 the Simpsons had a student from Albania in their home. The young Adil Hoxha (named after the Stalinist dictator of Albania Enver Hoxha) showed a clear Marxist understanding of society. For example he told Marge, "Mrs. Simpson, you have been oppressed enough today. I will clear the dishes." Marge is forced to do house work every day because she is oppressed by the capitalist patriarchy - but the two Simpsons kids never batted an eyebrow.

When the left-liberal know-it-all Lisa tries to explain about the "freedoms" of the USA, Adil observes correctly that these freedoms are meaningless when 95% of society's riches are in the hands of 5% of the population. Homer chimes in, explaining the true nature of the free market: The machinery of capitalism is oiled with the blood of the workers!

Homer's most important struggle was his term of service as a trade union activist. Mr. Burns wants to take the dental plan from the workers of the Springfield Nuclear Plant. The union is corrupt and the old boss, who had promised to clean things up, lies dead under the grass of a football stadium.

Homer first thinks that Burn's offer is great: a beer keg for the dental plan. But soon he realizes that the workers need to fight in order to keep their social protection -- they only have the dental plan as the result of a successful strike in the 80s. Homer explains all this to his comrades. He is elected the new head of the union and declares a strike!

Mr. Burns remembers with joy factory life in 1909, when there were no unions and the bosses could fire, beat, and kill workers at will. But now everything is different: the strikers stick together, attempts to use strikebreakers are useless, and Burns and Smithers can't run the plant by themselves.

The strikers form a giant ring in front of the entrance to the plant and sing the eternal truth of the workers' movement:

They have the plant
but we have the power!

These are but a few of the countless examples of revolutionary propaganda in the Simpsons. Besides the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Luxemburg, and other great revolutionaries, the works of Comrade Homer serve as inspiration on the road to socialism.

Comrade Lenin even showed up! In a new episode the Soviet Union is spontaneously brought back to life. Lenin's preserved corpse opens its eyes, punches through the glass of the coffin, and leaves the mausoleum like a Frankenstein monster: Must...destroy...capitalism! Grrr. If only that would happen in real life!

//by Wladek from Berlin //German original in wire #4

REVOLUTION - independent communist youth organization