Saturday 17 September 2022

Desperate Revolutionaries

I am appalled by yet another example of the dumbed-down television being inflicted on the citizens of Homeward. The latest - a rollicking gambol entitled 'Desperate Revolutionaries' is riddled with historical inaccuracies. It features a clutch of handsome young men in foppish shirts and waistcoats, who are reminiscent of the members of a modern-day boy band. The group consist of Karl Marx, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Che Guevara and Raul Castro! No matter that Castro was born two years after the death of Lenin and forty three years after the death of Marx! They stride around a fictional London debating the means to revolution. "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement!" cries Lenin downing a pint in the alehouse. "Don't worry - I have a manifesto" shouts Marx, in his cups, "Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!" It is patronising, simplistic and shockingly badly scripted - and will only serve to inflame the impressionable youth of today. Unbelievably this is a production of the Badgertown Broadcasting Corporation - one would not be surprised to see this kind of blatant propaganda on Badfort TV. The BBC have issued this statement: "In the mid-19th century, a group of young men challenged the politics of the day. The Communist Brotherhood were inspired by the real world, yet took imaginative licence in coming up with a totally new political theory. This story, based on their lives and loves, follows in that inventive spirit. It is our duty, as a major broadcaster, to make politics accessible to the masses in this time of disillusionment and apathy. We are very proud of the excellent script written by Mister Beaver Hateman." Of course, Hateman is loving this opportunity to extol his crackpot ideas. "A massive surge of trade union militancy; fears about the state of the economy; a government under pressure from employers; harsh sentences delivered using archaic legislation in an effort to intimidate workers - you would be forgiven for thinking that I am describing Homeward today - but it also applies to a period of revolt and repression that occurred long before, in 1848, when Karl Marx and his fellow members of The Communist Brotherhood, Lenin, Guevara and Castro first published the Communist Manifesto!" he declared at a press viewing.

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