Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Vandalism!   [John Derbyshire]

The Left never forgets a defeat and never forgives an enemy. In the salons of Manhattan, they are still whining about Alger Hiss and Joe McCarthy.

And then, Chile. When the Castroite Salvador Allende was overthrown by a military coup in 1973, thus probably forestalling the usual catalog of nation-wrecking Leninist horrors — slave-labor camps, famines, etc. — the international Left was outraged. They still are. The subsequent government of Augusto Pinochet, while often brutal and corrupt in the way of military dictatorships, restored Chile's economic health and eventually stepped aside to let the nation return to democracy. That of course outrages the Left even more. As Tony Daniels observed in our 2006 obituary symposium on Pinochet:

That a hick general from a humble background should so obviously have done much more for his country than a suave, educated, aristocratic Marxist was a terrible blow to the self-esteem of the Left in every Western country. As for holding a referendum on own his rule and abiding by the result when he lost, that was quite unforgivable, setting as it did a shocking precedent for left-wing dictators.

Still insensate with rage, the Left has now, by way of further blackening the name of Pinochet, perpetrated a gross outrage against Western civilization. Chilean commie film director Pablo Larraín has made a movie about the Pinochet years in which a small-time street criminal seeks to take on the identity of a major U.S. cultural icon. This is supposed to parallel the spiritual degradation of those Chileans who went along with Pinochet — who was, it goes without saying, a puppet of the C.I.A.

That's bad and silly enough. What lifts Larraín's feeble bit of ComSympery to the level of outrage is the particular cultural icon he picked on as the target for his venom. It is none other than Tony Manero, the character played by John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever. Larraín's wretched, filthy movie is in fact titled Tony Manero.

Is there no decency any more? No restraint? No respect for our cultural heritage?

Chile had a narrow escape from Marxist-Leninist tyranny. We should never cease to remind the Left of that, if only because it annoys the hell out of them. Pinochet, with all his many faults, was a patriot who saved his country. We should keep saying that, too; and Pablo Larraín's absurd movie gives us the opportunity. It might all have gone unmentioned for another year or so if not for Larraín; but, as Tony Manero says to the customer in the paint store: "You brung it up."

07/08 01:59 PMShare