"What a country!"
Posted on 04/16/2013 8:51:27 PM PDT by cunning_fish
I have seen the future and ran away.
At first the move to America from the former USSR made me feel as though I had made a jump in time, from the stagnant depraved past into a distant dynamic future.
There was an abundance of commonly available futuristic contraptions, machines, and appliances that made everyday existence easier and more enjoyable. Less obvious but just as exciting was the media's openness: I no longer needed to read between the lines to know what was happening.
Most importantly, there was honesty, dignity, and respect in relations among people.
Today I'm feeling like a time traveler again.
Only this time the productive, honest and self-reliant America is vanishing in the past, as we are quickly approaching the all too familiar future.
It is the future of equal poverty, one-party rule, media mooching, government looting, bureaucratic corruption, rigged elections, underground literature, half-whispered jokes, and the useful habit of looking over your shoulder.
(Excerpt) Read more at thepeoplescube.com ...
All of a sudden I find myself playing the role of a comrade from the future, helping my new compatriots to navigate the quagmire ahead of us.
Deprived of free political speech, Soviets had developed a culture of underground political jokes. I used to remember thousands of them.
Here's one of my favorites, dealing with the discrepancy between the official narrative and the everyday reality:
The six contradictions of socialism in the USSR
There is no unemployment - yet no one is working. No one is working - yet the factory quotas are fulfilled. The factory quotas are fulfilled - yet the stores have nothing to sell. The stores have nothing to sell - yet people's homes are full of stuff. People's homes are full of stuff - yet no one is happy. No one is happy - yet the voting is always unanimous.
Already in America I discovered that most of my old Soviet jokes didn't work in translation. It wasn't so much the language difference as the fact that Americans had no first-hand knowledge of a totalitarian government, ideological uniformity, and shameless propaganda. But that is changing. The more America "progresses" back to the Soviet model, the more translatable the old Soviet jokes become.
Let's see how an old Soviet joke can be rewritten into a new American joke.
The six contradictions of socialism in the United States of America
America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.
There's more where it came from - or where we're going, whichever the case may be.
LOL:)
“We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.”
Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries."
Wow. Just brilliant.
ping
It saddened me to watch this, as much as I did enjoy it.
Reagan was a warm, genuine guy who I was proud to have as President. His delivery telling jokes was wonderful.
Look at what we have now. Listening to this pathetic POS int the White House now try to tell a joke is like kneeling on broken glass.
"What a country!"
Just shared this with my son....doing a project on Reagan. THANKS
bfl
Even though Regan was for amnesty without border security, he is sorely missed.
Bump
Ten years ago I was deployed to Uzbekistan during the initial U.S. surge into Iraq. We were suddenly in the former USSR & the Uzbeks who didn’t speak English spoke Russian. My Yakov Smirnov jokes about life under communism went over like a lead balloon since these people knew what it was really like.
For example, “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite!”
They had seen “Red Dawn” and were not amused. Yes, Uzbeks did not like seeing Russians depicted as barbarian. That was odd given 150 years of Russian/Soviet occupation of Central Asia.
More old Soviet jokes:
1. Comrade Worker asks: “Comrade Commisar, Is it possible to build Socialism in America?”
Comrade Commisar answers: “Is possible. But then from where would we buy our wheat?”
2. There is no truth (Pravda) in the news (Isvestia),
and no news (Isvestia) in the truth (Pravda).
You are awesome!! I love this post.
If a movie [wrongly] depicts nation A as barbarian, there is nothing that would stop another movie of the same studio from depicting nation B as barbarian. Doing that just for laughs and profit is even less pleasant. B would naturally defend itself by supporting A. Uzbeks had their disagreements with Russians and with every other nation nearby, as it is typical among people who lived side by side for thousands of years and had unions with, and wars against pretty much everyone in the area. However those disagreements are an internal matter; the old enemies will support each other against a common foe - and guess who that was in this case...
My Yakov Smirnov jokes about life under communism went over like a lead balloon since these people knew what it was really like.
I suspect that many things were out of tune here. For example:
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite!
It is technically incorrect. Under communism (or, more precisely, under the Soviet regime - which was not communism by their own definitions) man did not exploit man. The worker was exploited by the gigantic jellyfish of the state. The state provided the worker with bad tools; the state poorly rewarded the worker; and the state then took most of the product and wasted it. (There were no millionaires in USSR, even though most of party functionaries drew healthy salaries and had access to other benefits.) It was like a poor commune, where everyone is equally poor and equally overworked just due to massive mismanagement, disenchantment, and low morale.
FWIW, I believe he later came to view it as among his greatest blunders.
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