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Preserving Culture, or Curtailing Freedom? (UNESCO & UN)
FOX News ^ | 11.01.05 | Wendy McElroy

Posted on 11/02/2005 5:59:08 PM PST by Coleus

On Oct. 20, by a vote of 148 to 2, the United Nations' Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) approved the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (preliminary draft).

Only the U.S and Israel dissented. The Convention will be in force after ratification by 30 governments. Before that happens, the U.S. should withdraw from UNESCO as it did in 1984.

......Presumably this means subsidies, tariffs, and other trade barriers.

The State Department has expressed concern that the CCD could become "a basis for impermissible new barriers to trade in goods, services, or agricultural products that might be viewed as being related to 'cultural expressions'."

Indeed, the CCD may be more about trade than culture. Some argue that its vagueness is actually a bargaining chip to be used against the U.S. during upcoming talks at the World Trade Organization.

But far more is at stake than economics................

One of them is resentment over how well American culture sells when consumers are free to buy. Movies, blue jeans, rock music and jazz, toys, soft drinks, McDonalds, literature from Playboy to comic books… As Neil Hrab comments in Tech Central Station, the CCD is "an effort to punish the U.S. for too-successfully exporting its… cultural products around the world."

The Heritage Foundation concludes that the CCD "is more about…cultural prejudice than cultural diversity and understanding."

China is an extreme example but it illustrates the relationship between culture and political control. It is no co-incidence that China's drive to embed communism as the dominant ideology and to quash political opposition was called "the cultural revolution.".............. To pacify the Beijing regime, Microsoft's Chinese portal recently banned access to certain words. The Financial Times reported,.................

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: un; unesco; unitednations

1 posted on 11/02/2005 5:59:09 PM PST by Coleus
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To: Coleus

I hate UNESCO, in Brazil UNESCO support the prohibition of fireguns. Is the UNESCO for education or for anti-freedom.


2 posted on 11/02/2005 6:05:30 PM PST by eimf
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To: eimf

there is a lot of info. about unesco on my home page.


3 posted on 11/02/2005 6:09:58 PM PST by Coleus (I support ethical, effective and safe stem cell research and use: adult, umbilical cord, bone marrow)
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To: Coleus

It's pretty safe to assume that anything the UN and UNESCO is for, freedom-loving Americans, Australians, Brits, Israelis, and all responsible adults should be against.

ESPECIALLY when the UN mentions 'diversity'.


4 posted on 11/02/2005 6:15:54 PM PST by wvobiwan (Proud Minuteman Project Volunteer - Secure borders, illegals OUT!)
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To: Coleus
Image hosted by TinyPic.com

5 posted on 11/02/2005 6:44:57 PM PST by Old Seadog (Inside every old person is a young person saying "WTF happened?".)
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