Post #1895264

2026-05-02 13:05 UTC

a KGB agent and a CIA agent meet up for drinks off the clock, and after a few drinks they start to talk shop. the CIA agent extols the strength of the Party&#39;s propaganda, &quot;All your citizens believe the propaganda! it&#39;s incredible! So little dissent.&quot; and the KGB responds, &quot;No my friend no, we are good at what we do, but you are the true masters of the art. No one at all questions your propaganda!&quot; to which the CIA agent says, confused, &quot;What do you mean? We don&#39;t have propaganda?&quot;

Replies (9)

@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us 2026-05-02 16:19

@Ambulocetus@mefi.social A related quote I can't stop sharing these days: "The US is also a one-party state. But with typical American extravagance, they have two of them."—Dr. Julius Nyerere, first president of Tanzania

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@oddhack@mstdn.social 2026-05-02 16:13

@Ambulocetus my Dad was a USAF officer commanding a photo-interpretation intelligence group in Japan in the early 1970s. He later said he knew his Soviet counterpart well, and when we went down to Expo '70, talked with him on the Shinkansen. At the Expo he apparently used me as a decoy to get better pictures of the (Edit: Soyuz) capsule while the Soviet booth attendants fawned over the tiny American child. I still have a Young Communist pin from that trip.

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@jepdee@mastodon.social 2026-05-02 16:55

@Ambulocetus "propaganda" is when a british person looks really closely at something.

Open ##1904153
@mossman@social.vivaldi.net 2026-05-02 17:02

@Ambulocetus wasn't this joke on For All Mankind or something?

Open ##1904154
@murdoc@autistics.life 2026-05-02 17:27

@Ambulocetus I think it was Chomsky that said something like that propaganda was to democracy as violence was to a dictatorship.

Open ##1904155
@saxnot@chaos.social 2026-05-02 17:54

@Ambulocetus congrats very funny

Open ##1904156
@H4Heights@mstdn.social 2026-05-02 17:59

@Ambulocetus More apposite Soviet humour: Guy stops by the newsstand every day, scans the front page, doesn’t buy the paper. One day the vendor asks what he’s up to. Guy says: “Looking for an obituary.” Vendor says “Those are towards the back of the paper, comrade.” Guy says: “Not the one I’m looking for.”

Open ##1904157
@oldclumsy_nowmad@mastodon.social 2026-05-02 19:43

@Ambulocetus The joke you posted is great! And the thread it initiated is fun, too. Humor is a precious commodity in difficult times. Thank you!

Open ##1904158
@RobotDiver@starlite.rodeo 2026-05-03 14:33

@Ambulocetus "And what did you think the modern Marvel Universe was for?"

Open ##1925593