Not like it is in West Germany, wink, wink. Just one of the countless benefits of living in a totalitarian police state.

It was quite the enviable position to be a citizen of the bygone socialist paradise known as the German Democratic Republic, if the reader of this fascinating slice of propaganda, We Live in East Germany, would be convinced by pages of personal accounts. And why wouldn't we? Things did turn out oh-so well.

Blogger and relentless flickr scanner-uploader, Monkey Mucker, found it for 50 cents in a thrift store in Asheville, North Carolina. "It was published in the UK in 1985 and it's a piece of propaganda genius. It's an alleged look at the lives of some ordinary average East German citizens. They all extol the virtues of living in a Communist country that had to build a wall to keep it's citizens from fleeing to the west."

One commenter at boingboing.net says, "It's probably safe to say that theses days 78.65% of those people are unemployed/retired, the other 21.35% are doing OK, and 68.98% secretly think that life was better back then."