< PREVIOUS ] [ 1991 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
My paranoid friends insisted that the CIA was behind
last week's events in Moscow. President Bush knew what
was going on the whole time,
they said. Remember on
Monday, when he said that coups can fail, and that
Gorbachev might return soon? How could Bush say that unless
he knew what was going on behind the scenes?
To placate them, I called Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
With the defeat of the Committee of Eight, Soviet
reformers have the strong hand now,
I began. I bet
you guys are thrilled.
I wouldn't put it that way,
Ziegler said.
Understand that the Committee has a strong interest in
preserving the Cold War. There was nothing better for
stifling dissent than the threat of Godless International
Communism. Nothing else could build big military budgets,
either. Look how excited your congressional representatives
were when they thought some local military base closings
might have to be delayed on account of the Hard-Liner
Coup.
So the Committee had nothing to do with the
resistance led by Boris Yeltsin,
I prodded.
Of course not,
Ziegler snapped. What could we
possibly gain by supporting Yeltsin?
What?
I asked in surprise.
Ziegler sighed in exasperation. Suppose Yeltsinism
spreads to the United States. He told Russian troops not to
fire on their own people, despite their orders. American
soldiers have never been reluctant to shoot at Americans.
You can go from the Whiskey Rebellion to Kent State, there
was the rout of the bonus marchers, labor wars like Ludlow
-- our soldiers obey orders to shoot their fellow citizens.
How could the Committee stay in control if Yeltsin's
insubordinate notions spread to this country?
You have a point,
I conceded.
More than a point,
he exclaimed. Yeltsin
believes in democracy. He says people can vote to get rid
of powerful bureaucrats who have cushy government jobs. Now
look at our country. In the last three elections, we've
elected presidents who support vouchers for public
education. Have you seen a voucher yet? Of course not. The
process is opposed by millions of tenured incompetents who
would lose their easy jobs, just as the Soviet nomenklatura
fights reforms supported by the public. Do you realize what
sort of upheaval we would face if Americans start to
believe that voting should make a difference?
That could cause trouble,
I agreed.
More than trouble,
Ziegler said. Yeltsin rants
against Hard-Liners seizing control of the government.
Here, we had Hard-Liners like Ollie North taking control of
foreign policy, in a totally illegal manner. Hardly any
difference, when you think about it. But the Committee was
able to persuade people that Ollie was a great patriot,
being unjustly persecuted. If you let some demagogue like
Yeltsin loose in this country, so he could agitate mobs in
the street and rally Americans against the subversion of
our constitutional processes by our Hard-Liners, then the
Committee wouldn't be able to function.
That sounds terrible,
I said.
I just hope we can get organized quickly in the
Soviet Union,
Ziegler concluded, so that we can
eradicate the scourge of Yeltsinism before it spreads to
this country.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1991 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >