Saturday 29 January 2011

The Other One

Naturally it is not only into Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other far-off lands that the United States stretches its sinister arm. Here is an example from Europe:

“Our aim is to engage the French population at all levels in order to amplify France’s efforts to realize its own egalitarian ideals, thereby advancing U.S. national interests.” [1]

“[W]e will continue and intensify our work with French museums and educators to reform the history curriculum taught in French schools, so that it takes into account the role and perspectives of minorities in French history.” [2]

“[W]e will build on the expansive Public Diplomacy programs already in place at post, and develop creative, additional means to influence the youth of France, employing new media, corporate partnerships, nationwide competitions, targeted outreach events, especially invited U.S. Guests.” [3] 

“We will also develop new tools to identify, learn from, and influence future French leaders.” [4]

“[W]e will support, train, and engage media and political activists who share our values.” [5]

“[W]e will continue our project of sharing best practices with young leaders in all fields, including young political leaders of all moderate parties so that they have the toolkits and mentoring to move ahead. We will create or support training and exchange programs that teach the enduring value of broad inclusion to schools, civil society groups, bloggers, political advisors, and local politicians. Through outreach programs, Embassy officers from all sections will interact and communicate to these same groups our best practices in creating equal opportunities for all Americans. We will also provide tools for teaching tolerance to the network of over 1,000 American university students who teach English in French schools every year.” [6]

“Finally, a Minority Working Group will integrate the discourse, actions, and analysis of relevant sections and agencies in the Embassy. This group, working in tandem with the Youth Outreach Initiative, will identify and target influential leaders and groups among our primary audiences. It will also evaluate our impact over the course of the year, by examining both tangible and intangible indicators of success. Tangible changes include a measurable increase in the number of minorities leading and participating in public and private organizations, including elite educational institutions; growth in the number of constructive efforts by minority leaders to organize political support both within and beyond their own minority communities; new, proactive policies to enhance social inclusion adopted by non-minority political leaders; expansion of inter-communal and inter-faith exchanges at the local level; decrease in popular support for xenophobic political parties and platforms. While we could never claim credit for these positive developments, we will focus our efforts in carrying out activities, described above, that prod, urge and stimulate movement in the right direction. In addition, we will track intangible measures of success — a growing sense of belonging, for example, among young French minorities, and a burgeoning hope that they, too, can represent their country at home, and abroad, even one day at the pinnacle of French public life, as president of the Republic.” [7]

In other words: ongoing, widespread, and subversive manipulation of the workings of another country for the sake of an egalitarian-revolutionary ideology. Here it seems that France, the land of the world’s second-born left-wing republic, is just not left-wing enough for the land of the world’s first.

Still, one evil empire down; another to go.


[1] Cable from Embassy Paris, “Minority Engagement Strategy”, 19th January 2010; Wikileaks: 10PARIS58; ¶1. (Apparently France is yet another European country having trouble with its natives: “The French media remains [sic] overwhelmingly white”. Ibid., ¶2.)
[2] Ibid., ¶5.
[3] Ibid., ¶7.
[4] Ibid., ¶7.
[5] Ibid., ¶8.
[6] Ibid., ¶9.
[7] Ibid., ¶11.

20 comments:

dearieme said...

"...to amplify France’s efforts to realize its own egalitarian ideals, thereby advancing U.S. national interests.” Even without its being clear just what it means, it's pretty sinister.

There was a period when American engagement in France might actually have advanced the condition of Minorities - when Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins, and other jazzmen lived and played there. That needed no government intervention. And the Minority whose condition was advanced was, of course, the black American jazzmen themselves, who received more humane treatment in Paris (and in London, the Hague, etc.)
than in much of the USA. Still, I don't suppose that an American cultural attache nowadays is likely to have the faintest idea who Coleman Hawkins was.

xlbrl said...

You do realize, this has nothing to do with flyover country.

This is all completely reversible by eliminating every government office created since 1913. Then we can go to work on 1861. As one of your boys said, we have learned to do a great many clever things. Now we shall have to learn to not do them.

Anonymous said...

Good Lord, what in the Hell has happened to my country? The French would be justified in breaking relations with us over this. For once, I'm actually shocked. This is Commie stuff...

Tschafer

The Cold Equations said...

May I ask, how did you come to find this cable? Are you reading the cables themselves, or is there some secondary source?

I ask because I was recently bemoaning the fact that only neocons and liberals have the resources to pore over the leaked cables - it would be nice to be wrong about that one.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad somebody else still finds the use of "media" as singular detestable. My children deride me for still making "data" plural; and "criterion", "bacterium" seem almost to have vanished. O tempora, O mores.

Deogolwulf said...

I do of course realise that not every American is chuffed about this sort of thing.

Mr Equations,

I look through the cables every now and then, but I didn't ferret this one out; it was brought to my attention by a commenter at Unqualified Reservations.

Anonymous said...

It's hardly news that the US is the world capital of neo-Marxism or Cultural Marxism or Transnational Progressivism or whatever you want to call it.

dearieme said...

Suppose that what worries the Yanks is Muslim terrorists from France (or Britain or Germany.....). Then they may wish, for reasons of self-interest, to intrude into the affairs of that country to reduce that risk, even with the consequence of damaging that country. In the tradition of American tabboos against free speech, they would rather not say so. So they dress it up by pretending that they believe that their intrusion would benefit that country.

That lets them combine the frankness of "thereby advancing U.S. national interests" with the witter of "these positive developments". In other words, this could be a case of unenlightened self-interest dressed up in the drivel of American PC.

Hm: it could be but I've failed to persuade myself.

Alan said...

This looks like it was sent well into the Obama administration (early 2010). This doesn't represent the majority views of the US population - but of the elite in the throes of liberalism (even if they call themselves conservative).

Deogolwulf said...

This is a matter that long foreruns Obama. And it doesn’t begin with Wilson either.

Deogolwulf said...

Hereafter, by the way, follow the words of a progressive revolutionist from the old days, drooling at the overthrow of Europe’s old order and therewith at the unchaining of the Devil (as Carlyle would say):

“The light which has been shed on the mind of man through the civilized world, has given it a new direction, from which no human power can divert it. The sovereigns of Europe who are wise, or have wise counsellors, see this, and bend to the breese which blows; the unwise alone stiffen and meet its inevitable crush. The volcanic rumblings in the bowels of Europe, from north to south, seem to threaten a general explosion, and the march of armies into Italy cannot end in a simple march. The disease of liberty is catching; those armies will take it in the south, carry it thence to their own country, spread there the infection of revolution and representative government, and raise its people from the prone condition of brutes to the erect altitude of man.”

Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Marquis de la Fayette, 26th December 1820, in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol.X (New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899), p.179.

josh said...

CE,

I came across this cable previously on my own. Go to Wikileaks. Choose a country that sounds interesting. Browse the titles of the cables. There aren't that many for each country, and the cables themselves are very short. It's fun and easy.

HaroldC said...

I really really hate the empire. The sooner the South is free and the United States is nothing but a bad memory the better.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Jefferson was regrettably enamored of the French Revolution, but a letter from him is hardly an official document of policy. You might as well cite the writings of Tom Paine, which went much further than even Jefferson was comfortable with. The US has always had its share of radicals, especially in the Northeast.

But the country, or more accurately the confederacy at that time, did not consider itself on the vanguard of a worldwide leftist revolution. Most Americans wanted nothing more than to conduct their business in peace. Titles of nobility were forbidden, which in Europe was a very bad sign, but in America there were no titles of nobility in the first place so it wasn't even a change. All men were free and equal, yes, but then only landed males could vote. An aristocracy in all but name quickly developed in the South. Slavery was practiced here even after most of Europe had abolished it.

The divide then between North and South is basically the divide between your revolutionaries and your, ah, normal people. If you had asked anyone south of NY whether the French should overthrow their king and abolish their aristocracy, they would have looked at you like you were nuts. Unfortunately, the revolutionaries won in the 1860s and again in the 1950s. Now we have Obamerica. A pathetic end for a once great country, but we were not always the world's worst nightmare.

-Matt

Deogolwulf said...

Matt,

Much agreed. I wasn’t suggesting, however, that Jefferson’s words reflected policy. Jefferson may have had a head stuffed full of Enlightenment-nonsense, but he was no stranger to reality. The US was still a weak power; he and the like-minded could only wish and drool. But once the revolutionary party stood at the head of great power, . . . well, we know the result.

alexi de sadesky said...

Mr Deogolwulf,

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I don't have the strength to trudge through the bog of Mr Moldbug's comment section these days to discover gems like this.

James Higham said...

even one day at the pinnacle of French public life, as president of the Republic

Someone forgotten the Hungarian with the Italian wife?

David Duff said...

I have just written the following to the Editor of The Times:

Dear Sir,
Today I spotted the first post of the year by Deogolwulf. Does this herald an early spring?
Yours etc.

Deogolwulf said...

Surely a late blast of winter.

Anonymous said...

There are an aweful lot of people who need to be hanged, I'm just wondering where we are going to get enough rope?