Laughing at the Contradictions of Socialism in America [Old Soviet-era jokes work now in the U.S.]

pajamasmedia.com ^ | March 5, 2009 | Oleg Atbashian

[Yardstick]

Great post. This guy is too good.

Isn’t it wonderful that we can now appreciate and participate in the tragicomic humor of the Russians?

[TLI]

“Hammering” out a reference PING...

[GOP_Raider]

Filmmakers hate capitalism — yet they sue for unauthorized copying of their movies.

I loved this line.

[dcwusmc]

Bump and ping

[Cacique]

During the days in which Lenin instituted the NEP 5 year plan (new Economic Plan) to try to avoid the total collapse of the soviet economy. One of the policies was to implement greater trade and so USSR imported more tractors to aid in increasing agricultural production. The tag on the tractors and many other imported goods all read REGUSPATOF, soon rumors spread all over USSR that mother Russia had the world's greatest inventor and his name was Reguspatof. Reguspatof got a great reputation in the USSR. Of course, Reguspatof stood for REGISTERED US PATENT OFFICE.

[bamahead]

Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!

[rabscuttle385]

In Soviet America...*sigh* This is just so wrong.

[traviskicks]

bookmark

[Rome2000]

This Running Dog has bookmarked the article Comrade.

[dmartin]

I am not laughing. In fact, right now I feel like breaking down and sobbing...

I understand. However, we need to remember something. Whatever they should do to our country, our institutions and our way of life can be undone. It may take us a long time and it may be much harder than we imagine, but in the end it will be done.

[backhoe]

Kind of reminds me of that old joke that was popular inside the old Soviet Union:

Q: What happens when we take over the Sahara Desert?
A: For fifty years- nothing... then there’s a sand shortage...

[FBD]

The peoplescube was once a great source of information, comrade Tolik.

How sad to see that it is being sullied by capitalist advertising such as the one you posted.

[Tolik]

About shortages, here is another old Soviet joke:

A woman walks into a store and asks: “Don’t you have meat, do you?”

A store worker answers: “We are a Fish store, we don’t have fish. That store across the street, do you see it? That’s a meat store. THEY are who don’t have meat”

[wendy1946]

Whenever I've spoken with Russians old enough that their parents or grandparents would have lived under the tsars, I've asked them the question of which was worse, i.e. "Жизн в России была хуже под царями, или под коммунистами?" (Which was worse, life under the tsars or under the communists), and the answer has always come back the same way; that life under the tsars was so bad that it never occurred to anybody it could get worse, but that it didn't just get a little bit worse. After ten or twelve years of THAT ****, people spoke of tsarist times as the good old days.

[Rome2000]

Btt