I guess the Europeans don't like us ...
You said "peein"......he he he
Posted on 10/26/2005 7:00:59 AM PDT by Valin
Last Thursday, the United States was sucker-punched by an international organization. A majority of countries belonging to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) voted to support a joint French and Canadian initiative aimed at making it easier for foreign governments to limit consumer access to American cultural products.
Most newspapers that covered the story portrayed the vote as a humiliation for the United States. (Indeed, the vote wasn’t even close—only the U.S. and Israel dissented.) The International Herald Tribune, for example, blared in its headline, “U.S. All but Alone in Opposing UNESCO Cultural Pact.” An A.P. story in Newsday trumpeted “U.S. Out in Cold in UNESCO Diversity Pact.” Our friends at the Sydney Morning Herald looked to Ahnold for inspiration: “U.N. Plays Terminator to American Film Industry.”
Just one day later, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail ran an opinion piece by Dr. Michael Byers, who holds a Canada research chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. His op-ed revealed some surprising means by which the Canadian government worked behind the scenes to ensure the UNESCO agreement would pass. He wrote that, as far back as 1997, “Sheila Copps, then Canadian heritage minister, had already organized an international network of culture ministers and funded the formation of a parallel non-governmental association [italics added],” which subsequently supported the cause of greater cultural protectionism.
This raises some interesting questions. How much did the Canadian government spend on this association? Should it be called “non-governmental” if a government was intimately involved in its creation? Dr. Byers did not name the association, but he may have been referring to the International Network for Cultural Diversity, a self-described “world-wide network of artists and cultural groups” that favors increased cultural protectionism.
Moreover, if Canada hadn’t funded the formation of this non-governmental association, would the pro-treaty campaign have gotten off the ground? Does this detract at all from the UNESCO treaty’s legitimacy?
The U.S. earns about $80 billion a year from the export of its popular culture. While certain global, political, and cultural elites may loathe certain elements of this export, the global masses certainly do not. If hatred of U.S. popular culture had any major traction, that $80 billion figure would shrink all on its own—without any government intervention or UNESCO treaties. That Canada had to fund a pro-cultural protectionism group to build support for the UNESCO treaty is but one sign of the hate-Hollywood crowd’s isolation from mainstream global opinion.
That isolation is further manifested in the alliance required to pass the UNESCO treaty. Canada and France had to win over the despotisms of Iran and Zimbabwe, both of which belong to the Canada-based International Network on Cultural Policy. What wonderful (and increasingly predictable) bedfellows.
Respectable supporters of cultural protectionism feigned surprise when they learned that Canada and France couldn’t turn down help from the mullahs of Tehran or Robert Mugabe. But there’s a lesson here for Ottawa and Paris: when you find yourselves on the same side of an issue as some of the global village’s top thugs, you may want to re-think your position.
Canada and France present themselves as models of cultural achievement and openness. How they can strike this pose while limiting consumer access to foreign cultural goods is a mystery. That they’re willing to cozy up to rogue states in order to get the treaty passed is a disgrace.
Neil Hrab was the 2003 Warren T. Brookes Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
LOL!
You should have kept watching, since that scene was the only "fake" scene in the entire episode, and the key to finding the real murderess.
Yeah, this is red on red from where I stand.
The Law of Unintended Consequences should have an interesting effect, here. Many movies, TV shows and TV commercials are filmed in Canada due to their lower costs.
With this UNESCO deal, Canada may have sucker-punched itself while it was sucker-punching Hollyweird. Though the Hollyweirdos are dumb as a bunch of rocks, even they can figure out what is going to happen to their cushy lifestyle if their "products" are withheld from foreign markets.
This whole stupid thing is to laugh.
EVERY SINGLE TIME that there is a dispute with ANY country in the world, the WTO, WHO, UN, et al, a fine/decision is ALWAYS against the US! That bunch of stupid bast*rds in DC have their heads up their a$$es so far, that they can't see the light of day! By the time they see what they've done, the US will be a third world country! We can thank President Bush for the latest suck up to the UN, and it's costing us a fortune. That and all of the unconstitutional trade agreements he's made with Canada, Mexico and the rest of the world, have screwed us beyond the point of repair.
Heritage Ministers? Culture Ministers?
This sounds like a Mony Python routine. I love this stuff.
I've decided I want to be a Heritage Minister. I'm going to promote the authentic tribal traditions of my people, which is bass fishing, fast-pitch softball, and barbecue. If you say anything against it, you're a racist. And you'll have to say "please" if you want seconds.
No big deal, really, nothing to see, just pretend it's an empty gesture and you'll feel just fine about it.
We haven't been terribly dependent on those Euro-peons since the Revolutionary War.
There ya go!
Yes. Interesting that the very people who stand to lose the most in this are some of the UN's biggest public supporters. Hollywood liberals may just turn spiteful.
When you're reactions are those of a narcissistic juvenile, that's right--humiliation is the worst thing imaginable--for a twelve year-old.
You nailed it. I think this is in part a reaction to an increasing rate of globalization of culture per se, that of the United States being only the villain of the moment. India's turn will come - her representatives voted in favor despite the sizeable income that country receives from a movie industry that puts out more than Hollywood. Good luck, suckers!
I don't really think this sort of insularity is possible in the long run even if the Euros and the other multicultis do manage to fragment the Internet. But they have to understand that this sort of persistent, one-sided anti-American activity is more likely to harden American attitudes toward the sort of internationalist control they're pushing. Continuing to slap us in the face at every opportunity and then bleating "why do they hate us? Oh, it must be because they're imperialists" is childish and self-defeating.
He he Check it out, check it out... it's like the English channel or something.
You dumb ass. The English channel is in England.
Yeah, huh huh. England. Like where's that?
Somewhere in Europe... Near Britian, I think.
I don't think their treaty will amount to much.
All of these things will still make it into these countries if their consumers want it, and they do.
Just more stupid nanny state controls that will fail.
Hollywood will get around whatever restrictions are put into place. They can offshore a certain % of production to Canada or Mexico and turn the movie into a "foreign" product for purposes of the agreement. I'm sure there's no shortage of people within the UN that they can buy off if needed.
Best publicity yet... thank you communist for making our products higher in demand while reducing supply.... sucker communist mofos.
Best publicity yet... thank you communist for making our products higher in demand while reducing supply.... sucker communist mofos.
"The U.S. earns about $80 billion a year from the export of its popular culture.
If I'm reading the article correctly, the "Cultural products" are mostly movies and music. On one hand, I want to support American businesses, but OTOH the world is kinda sticking it to Hollywierd. Given the amount of crap that passes for "cultural products" these days, it might be nice to limit them here too...."
It is a bit like the Iran-Iraq War, isn't it? Madonna and Alec Baldwin vs. Kofi Annan and Jaques Chirac.
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