Alternate title: gnat discusses lion.
I suppose that I am supposed to be upset about this, for some reason.
Offering an historical footnote Saturday to one of the most memorable lines of the Cold War, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev confessed Saturday that he was underwhelmed when President Ronald Reagan demanded in 1987 that he “..tear down this wall.”
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth,” Gorbachev said through a Russian interpreter, in response to a question about Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech, after addressing an audience at Judson University in Elgin. “Don’t be surprised but we really were not impressed. We knew that Mr. Reagan’s original profession was actor.”
And Mr. Gorbachev’s was “bootlicking lackey for one of the most disgusting, vicious tyrannies in human history.” Gorbachev went on to be the one wearing the biggest boots, while Reagan of course staked down Soviet Communism and ripped its black, suppurating heart out of its chest, all the while merrily laughing with the mirth of the just as the thing that he was executing died like a coward* – so I will leave it to my readers to decide who got the most out of Career Day.
Via @TomBevanRCP.
Moe Lane
PS: I wonder if Mikhail Gorbachev really gets it – in his bones – that by all rights he should have ended his life being strung up on a lamppost?
*I certainly hope that this image offends and disgusts any Marxist reading it. It’s meant to.
Gorby initiated perestroika and glasnost, then reflexively pulled back because he still believed that the State must dictate how the individual is to live. He later regretted being the catalyst that brought down Communism, because the Marxist-Leninist disease was in his bones (and still is). Gorby couldn’t get it then, doesn’t get it now, and will go to his grave still not getting it.
I like the use of the word “should” in the PS. It’s slightly ambiguous in that it could be interpreted as 1) having been in charge of a murderous, tyrannical regime it would’ve been a fitting end to his life or 2) that why murderous, tyrannical regimes end, they usually end with whoever was at the top being strung up.
Lately, I’ve increasingly thought that we live in some alternate timeline where the USSR came into existence due to a series of critical failures on its opponents part and extreme luck on its proponents part. In the vast majority of timelines, the USSR didn’t come into existence due to die rolls that were a bit more average.
Moe, you wouldn’t happen to know of any alternative history books regarding the USSR not coming into existence, do you?
TomInKorea: the most immediate one that comes to mind is Eugene Byrne’s and Kim Newman’s Back in the USSA
, which transfers the Revolution over to the USA. Decent writing, but Kim’s British-Leftist disdain for American exceptionalism might grate.
Not much else comes to mind, sorry.