NOTE: It is the end-of-year housecleaning. This week we struggle to finish unfinished write-ups.

America is crushed. This is devastating. America will have to leave the planet.

Will no one help us up from the floor?

FRANCE CLAIMS CULTURAL VICTORY OVER AMERICA

October 21, 2005 (Telegraph) - France claimed a significant victory last night in its relentless battle against the march of American culture with the adoption of internationally-backed protections. ... Supported notably by Canada, France was the driving force behind a "cultural diversity" convention agreed by 148 of the 154 countries which took part in the vote at the Paris general conference of the United Nations arts and culture agency, Unesco.

France devotes huge resources to protecting francophone arts, spending many millions of pounds each year to prop up French cinema, theatre and opera.

But that is not enough to satisfy the influential cultural lobby and a string of single-interest trade groups.

Commentators routinely deplore the perceived simplistic morality and emotional shallowness of American cinema, as well as the cheap thrills of Euro Disney, despite their popularity.

The courts even ruled that the First World War film, A Very Long Engagement, starring Audrey Tautou, was not French enough to qualify for state subsidies. Rival French film makers objected because most of the production budget was met by Warner Bros through its French subsidiary. Yet the film was made in France and in French, with a French cast and production team, providing work for 2,200 people.

Regarding that last bit:

'VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT' MOVIE RULED 'NOT FRENCH'

PARIS June 1, 2005 (AFP) - The case has been closely followed because it could set a precedent for future Hollywood investments in France.

2003 Productions said the decision to class the film [Un long dimanche de fiançailles] as foreign was "stupefying" because "2,000 French walk-ons, some 30 French actors and actresses and 500 French technicians were employed in France over 18 months" to make the film.

None of that filthy American money giving jobs to French businesses and employment to French citizens. Better French citizens remain on the French dole. Le chômeur has, if not his dignity, at least his Frenchness.

Now back to this enormous French victory. It is easy to see why the Convention On The Protection And Promotion Of The Diversity Of Cultural Expressions has such great appeal for the French. It is a typical UN make-work project mushed together by a fractious and unispired committee. Over half of the 39 pages of the Convention document comprise a self-applauding exposition of the committee producing the Convention document:

The main outcome of the Drafting Committee’s work at its first meeting was the preparation, starting from a five-part document of more than 400 pages containing 1,025 options, of a revised text of 130 pages with 650 options.
33 C/23, p.7

The Committee managed to reduce the original 52 proposals for Article 1 to a list of nine objectives, and likewise to sift the 63 formulations offered for Article 2 (Principles).
33 C/23, p.8

The document is replete with clunky neologisms ("Interculturality", Annex V, p.6), clumps of endocentric compounds ("standard-setting, awareness-raising and capacity-building", 33 C/23, p.1), empty cobbled-up notions ("The UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and its Action Plan...recognizes cultural diversity for the first time as the 'common heritage of humanity'.", 33 C/23, p.1), and clichés ("foster interculturality in order to develop cultural interaction in the spirit of building bridges among people", Annex V, p.3). What Frenchman wouldn't love such a pretentious heap of conflicted gobbledygook?

Cultural diversity itself contradicts the very notion of cultural preservation and protections. Cultures tend to flourish when they supplant or absorb a competing culture not when they remove themselves from competition. They die when they lose their vitality or when they are assimilated or when destroyed by natural or historical forces.

Were this Convention in force 1,700 years ago, there would be no "French" culture because the establishment of a French kingdom would supplant the protected native Celtic culture of the Gauls, who, in the interests of their primitive cultural preservation, would also have been protected from the erosive influence of Roman language and customs. Were this Convention in force 200 years ago, Republican "French" culture would have been ruled illegal because of its inherent conflict with the prevailing native minority monarchic culture.

Well, it's nice to have an official U.N. document in place to preserve such quaint cultural practices as genital mutilation, honor killings, child brides (vid., III.I.4-5-6), slavery, and eating the brains of the deceased.

There may, of course, be a few rough patches were cultural interests conflict, say, wearing one's hijab and government censure. How will this new U.N. convention resolve these? The Convention takes a three-step approach: Negotiation between parties; arbitration by a third party; and conciliation by the convention's Conciliation Commission. Oh, and this:

Each Party may, at the time of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession, declare that it does not recognize the conciliation procedure provided for above.
ANNEX V: VII. FINAL CLAUSES, Article 25 – Settlement of disputes, 33 C/23, p. 13/34

To summarize: disputes will be settled by talk or more talk or big talk, all of which talk may be disregarded. Brilliant. Does anybody read this stuff?

France and the U.N. will now get busy regulating cultures -- that is transforming the expressive lives of societies into U.N. waxworks with assigned visiting hours. No thanks, America will sit this folly out.

PFFT (What is this?): Preserving the world for France 5 | Rayonnement français 0

The case has been closely followed because it could set a precedent for future Hollywood investments in France.

Well now I am just darned confused. I thought that Hollywood was France!

Bonjour,

Il est patent qu' Holywood est en pleine décomposition et compte de moins en moins dans le Monde.
En France , le cinéma chinois ,afghan ,coréen etc rencontre un grand succès.
Les USA seront perdants car ils sont incapables de ne pas se regarder le nombril.
Un fait significatif:ils sont incapables d'apprécier une oeuvre étrangère dans son originalité et sont obligés d'en faire un grossier "remake" ...
Ce fait se retrouve dans l'industrie automobile:incapables qu'ils sont de remettre en cause leur modèle de parvenus de la "grosse bagnole" ,leur industrie auto s' effondre (GM)...
Votre modèle de société est fini et vous ne voulez pas le savoir,attendez-vous à de lourdes déconvenues:GM n'est qu'un début....

Good luck for your country in Irak and for GM !!!

You know if Frog culture was any good then they wouldn't have to subsidize it.

If Frog culture was any good its own citizens would support it rather than heading to Disney Paris while eating McDonalds in their Nikes.

Please oh please frogaphiles Zoomeridiot and Anti-Intellegence why can't your culture stand on its own?