Another May Day is here and there is still plenty of time to celebrate by walking around with red flags, playing marching music and shouting the approved slogans:
Long live the unity and close ties of the peoples of the nations of the socialist community! Let strengthen the indissoluble fighting union of the Communist parties of the socialist nations on the basis of the tested principles of Marxism- Leninism and proletarian internationalism!
Fraternal greeting to the working class of the capitalist nations–a selfless fighter against exploitation and the domination of monopolies and for the rights of all workers, for peace, democracy and socialism!
Warm greeting to the people of Latin America, carrying on a courageous struggle against the oppression of imperialist monopolies, against reaction and fascism, for free and independent development, for peace, democracy, and social progress!
The truth is, I am lazy, my car is in the shop and I have nothing better to do working tirelessly to entertain you. Some of those might have been used in the previous posts, sorry.
1. I did a local meme and checked out the new downtown grocery store. While I was pretty impressed with various lunch options, I think they missed another money-making opportunity. They could sell tickets to observe sushi-eating douchebags in their natural habitat, conveniently located right in the middle of the store. Couple of couches and some pop-corn is all that’s needed for douchebag-watching which provides countless hours of entertainment while the home-grown sushi connoisseurs are getting mercury poisoning in real time.
2. This one is more of an RFP. I would like to have a device such as when I yell at other drivers they can actually hear me. I feel like I have a lot of valuable information to share, some great zingers and one-liners, as well as timely observations about their driving, and it’s not fair that all this just bounces off my windshield. This has a potential to become a valuable tool which will revolutionize on-the-road communications and help other idiots with their driving.
All this Sarah Palin satire business reminded me of a special place satire held in the USSR. Even during the times when straight talk would get a person arrested, the same idea framed in satirical terms was perfectly acceptable, up to a point of course. When I was growing up® there were at least two state-published satirical magazines – Krokodil in Russian and Perets’ in Ukrainian where in between the caricatures bashing Americans Imperialists and Israeli Zionists, there was plenty of space devoted to satirizing the bureaucrats, alcoholics and other violators of work discipline. From the state-sponsored satire all the way down to colorful walls of shame at the workplace, various humorists were allowed to speak their mind as long as they didn’t direct their criticisms at the wrong people and didn’t say the wrong things. The most popular comedians mastered the special language understood only by the Soviet citizens who were trained to “read between the lines”. Fairly innocent comic routines had people rolling on the floor without having to say anything deemed offensive by the government; an uninitiated person would be dumbfounded but everyone in the country knew exactly what was being implied.
Often satirical materials were displayed in the streets for everyone to see and condemn whoever was being condemned at the time. Few photos as a continuation of my recent Window Shopping post.
From top to bottom (minus the rhyming):
“Volodya was kissing Nastya, talking about happiness, but all she wanted to know was how much money he was making” – criticizes gold-diggers;
“Flying for an hour, landing is fast but it takes all day to get home from the airport” – criticizes slow airport transportation.
“Fedot is always sending people to his boss to get the answers, but if the boss has all the answers, why do we need Fedot” – criticizes indecisive management.
“When the fight was going on there was a crowd watching, but when it came to filling out a report, there were no witnesses” – no snitching?
“There is a line waiting outside some bureaucrat’s door, while he went home to eat his lunch” – criticizes bad customer server and lack of work discipline.
“Plan of stocking the warehouse was well-prepared and discussed, instead someone should’ve discussed the shoddy condition of the warehouse itself” – criticizes wrong priorities and failing to see the “big picture”.
“Lazy useless employee didn’t do much all year and got so tired of doing nothing that he went on a resort vacation” – no explanation is needed.
“Lecturer talked about culture with self-importance and at length, but his unshaven unkempt looks were in contrast to the subject” – hippie looks were not encouraged.
Lastly, an international one. There were no limits on international satire as long as it wasn’t about the friendly socialist countries.
Top left pokes some wordplay fun at the UN (ООН); top right bashes the Spanish dictator Franco for boycotting soccer quarter-finals in Moscow obviously ordered by his superiors in the USA; the bottom one is about the U-2 incident.
As you can see, Sarah Palin is right: if you say something unfavorable you should resign, be fired, hauled away, sent to be “rehabilitated” at the labor camps, your family should be harassed and your name dragged through the mud; but satire is a different story because it’s so satirical, right?
You betcha.
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1. I did a local meme and checked out the new downtown grocery store. While I was pretty impressed with various lunch options, I think they missed another money-making opportunity. They could sell tickets to observe sushi-eating douchebags in their natural habitat, conveniently located right in the middle of the store. Couple of couches and some pop-corn is all that’s needed for douchebag-watching which provides countless hours of entertainment while the home-grown sushi connoisseurs are getting mercury poisoning in real time.
