European Document / Mitterrand's Dirty TrickS
Train, John
MITTERRAND' S DIRTY TRICKS What did Paris think of the Kulterfest that Mitterrand's minister of culture, Jack Lang, staged before the municipal elections, I asked my friend the President-Directeur...
...Read what these well-known writers say about Joseph Sobran: "Mr...
...I had lunch in this very restaurant three months ago with a friend of mine who runs the financial side of one of the top dailies...
...Is the government going to squeeze them...
...So I don't feel quite such an obligation to speak out publicly...
...I observed that the U.S...
...I recently bought a 16-horsepower tractor for my farm...
...Dadal It wouldn't get him a passing grade in a literature course, nor did it impress the public here...
...Cosmetics, just cosmetics, intended for shock effect and to give the public the impression that something is being done...
...Bien sure, it will do wonders for Club Mediterran6e...
...Half the fare price...
...He told me that previously he had received a call from a government souterrain...
...So if you quote me by name and some competitor passes on to the government your article containing my criticisms, three or four phone calls from the ministry to my biggest customers and I'm fichu...
...TV commentaries...
...F. Buckley, Jr...
...Pas mal du tout...
...has had the same problem, thanks to unreasonable manning schedules-featherbedding-which, however, we're beginning to get control of...
...31 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1983...
...It's more the other way around: the transport workers could probably overthrow the government if they felt like it...
...Yes," said my friend the PDG, nodding grimly, "but how much...
...And with things as they are, I don't even dare talk about it officially, unlike some of my more courageous friends...
...What do you think VOICES OF BASEBALL Quotations on I ~ the Summer Game i By Bob Chieger 245 pages Atheneum Publishers "A TREAT FOR FANS" BOOKLIST Send $9.95 to Voices, Box 2950...
...The proprietor knows that at any time the government can simply turn off his credit and put him out of business...
...It may happen that way or it may not...
...Sobran has also been writing regular essays for The Human Life Review, an unusual quarterly journal (edited by J. P. McFadden) that explores in depth many of the most crucial issues of our time: abortion, the "right to die," the crisis of the traditional family, pornography, homosexuality, and much more...
...That simply cannot happen under the present government...
...What did he think of the Mitterrand government's new measures to defend the franc...
...The whole national railway system, the SNCF, does in fact lose 50 percent on each ticket before the state subsidy...
...San Jose, CA 95160 First there was the noble snail darter...
...Order Four copies today-for friends...
...Please send me copies at the regular price of $12.95 per copy...
...Rather than cure the affliction, we packed the thermometer in ice...
...And incidentally, the transport workers have to contribute part of their gross wages to the Communist Party, right off the top, as you say...
...When this government came in, -France had comfortable foreign reserves, and a good economic situation...
...Camouflage, pure camouflage...
...You can get a copy for yourself direct from the publisher for just $12.95 postpaid by using the coupon below...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR Reprint Department P.O...
...Box 1969 Bloomington...
...And incidentally, your American contingent scarcely appeared to advantage...
...Environmentalist hysteria is spreading-from your neighbor the college prof sniffing in his backyard for PCBs to the Friends of the Earth whose passionate tracts depict Secretary James Watt as the anti-Christ...
...And the devaluation...
...They don't report it that way, but those are the facts...
...Name (please print) Address City State Zip AS-I Please make all checks parable to: The Human Life Press...
...Malcolm Muggeridge "Sobran writes with verve and imagination, and never fails to shed new light on anything he touches...
...Why can't you...
...That's before the government subsidy...
...But it's not fun these days, I can tell you...
...To restore equilibrium there we will need to devaluate against the mark far more than the 8 percent we did...
...I have a fine company, as you know...
...Often the employee regards taxes as part of the cost of living...
...No, no, the prudent course is to follow the advice of Epicurus and live secretly, at least until all this blows over...
...Voila," said the PDG...
...But do you know what happened...
...I suppose the only thing worse than being a Cassandra-having steadily predicted the mess into which Mitterrand would get my country," said my friend the PDG, "is being a Cassandra who then can't say, 'I told you so...
...C'Jtait tellement bete...
...You can't get it in a bookstore (the Human Life Press is a private publisher of special editions) but you can obtain your copy simply by using the handy coupon below...
...do you know what that is...
...Fill out and return the coupon today...
...MITTERRAND' S DIRTY TRICKS What did Paris think of the Kulterfest that Mitterrand's minister of culture, Jack Lang, staged before the municipal elections, I asked my friend the President-Directeur G6n6ral...
...In mounting an attack on legalized abortion, Joseph Sobran is the perfect marksman...
...In a socialist country, what he wants he usually gets...
...Obviously, that means lower profits, inflation, and pressure on the franc...
...Now you can get your own copy of the first book of essays published by one of America's finest and most quotable young writers (NR's own Joseph Sobran) JUST PUBLISHED STLNIGWf9su Q pp he crud l Socia% QV You won't find it in your local bookstore, but you can order a first-edition copy by using the coupon below...
...Styron, for example, not knowing our poetry, tells us instead that the John Train is author of The Money Masters, Remarkable Names, and other books, and is a columnist in Le Matin (Paris), Harvard Magazine, and Investors Chronicle (London...
...With all the recent furor over the Environmental Protection Agency, this report is an essential tool in understanding the anticapitalist mentality behind this the Age of Environmentalism...
...Like most businesses these days, this paper owes a lot of money to the banks, and particularly since the latest bank nationalizations, that again means the government...
...5 .75 for one S 6.00 for ten 5 12.00 for twenty-file 5 45.00 for One huri:ir: ' 5200.00 for five hunk:: PLEASE PRINT Name Address City by John Train "And even that's not the worst of it...
...In this reprint of his May 1983 Spectator article...
...Thatcher is attempting in England...
...Let me give you a particularly nasty example...
...So we spend our foreign reserves defending the franc, while blaming, instead of our own mistakes, the supposed overpricing of the dollar and the mark...
...So, quote me if you like, but not by name...
...He will maintain his independence to the death, says the proprietor...
...Robert Nisbet argues that environmentalism has lost all perspective and taken on the aura and enthusiasm of a religion...
...Then, take the idea of raising taxes to slow down demand...
...There is no reason why they should...
...Concorde is a poem...
...He must have known disaster was coming-the devaluation as well as the election results...
...Will the measures work, considering that the same ministerial team is still in place, having shuffled a few chairs...
...Not enough...
...students, businessmen, teachers, and even the local Sierra Club...
...But it's a 'wholesale' enterprise: all my customers are businesses, most of them are big businesses and banks...
...Indiana 47402 Please rush me reprints of "Modern Man and the Obsession...
...From the first essay ("Crucial Issue Politics," which explains why "single issue" voters are anything but narrow-minded) to the final marvelous tribute to the great C. S. Lewis (a literary treat), you will enjoy Sobran's refreshing writing so much that you'll find yourself quoting him over and over again, and recommending this marvelous book to your friends (you won't want to lend anybody your own copy of Single Issues...
...Twenty-five...
...And the economic outlook...
...For instance, take the crackdown on foreign travel...
...I, for better or worse, am a technician...
...is 100 billion francs, of which almost 40 percent is with Germany...
...Michael Novak The Human Life Press • 150 East 35th Street • New York, New York 10016 Gentlemen: I do want to get Joseph Sobran's first book of essays, Single Issues...
...You'll definitely want a copy of this handsome and memorable book for your personal library...
...The RATP loses 120 percent of the cost of each ticket...
...It may help a little, but not much...
...It already makes credit available on especially favorable terms to his pro government competitors...
...Don't miss this opportunity to get your first-edition copy of a unique collector's item...
...each sentence finds its target with deadly accuracy, and helps bring down the whole edifice of ostensible compassion (a beautiful word now so abased as to be unusable) whereby the systematic slaughter of millions of unborn children, as well as of an ever increasing number of the aged and incapacitated, is justified...
...Then came the whales...
...L1 This first-edition book is big (over 200 pages) and beautifully printed by one of the nation's finest printers...
...Here the transport-workers union is the biggest single component of the Communist Party, which is an indispensable part of the ruling coalition...
...Clare Boothe Luce "Joe Sobran is unquestionably the wittiest, most tren chant-and yet, finally, lyrical-moralist to have appeared in my time...
...So to distract the public he stages this piece of mummery...
...Our trade deficit...
...Seeing my hesitation, he groped for the word...
...The PDG nodded approvingly...
...His duty is to broadcast the truth far and wide...
...Actually, an even sadder situation is that of the newspaper proprietors...
...All these measures that the government has announced can't change that basic fact...
...Let me give you a simple example...
...We work hard, we do well...
...Our system has gotten out of balance...
...No, no, his situation is grim, very grim indeed...
...We will pay all postage and handling involved...
...You can imagine how much time it takes just to cope with their thousands of questions, quite aside from how it looks to the people in the office...
...Jamais...
...Anyway this souterrain had called on my friend, to propose a government buyout of his paper...
...He has a world of knowledge to communicate, and there is great joy in the experience...
...The minister of transport, one of the most powerful men in the country, is a Communist, as you know...
...Within a week there were 25 tax inspectors in the place, looking over his books: his expenses, his depreciation account, every last thing...
...So how does the new government cope with the recession...
...There are two comparable machines on the market, French and German...
...National Review readers have long enjoyed Joseph Sobran's sharp and witty essays, reviews, and editorials -just as so many Americans enjoy his syndicated newspaper columns and radio...
...Sobran knows what he's talking about, which is a rare compliment these days...
...Imagine my amazement on discovering that the French model costs a third more than the German one...
...All the banks and most of my big industrial customers are now nationalized...
...If they go up, he wants more money...
...I thought a while...
...But in fact it's much worse than that...
...Well," he replied, "consider my situation...
...And his advertising from state-controlled industries has been cut back...
...Transportation is a key part of our country's war plans, but as a Communist, the minister can't receive clearance to see France's own mobilization orders...
...Mitterrand certainly doesn't have any friends on the Right, so he's got to reward the ones he has on the Left...
...Not to the government itself, of course, but to a government-sponsored buyer, a reliable socialist...
...We need a profound restructur ing of our economy along the lines that Mrs...
...Horrible, I agreed...
...But Mr...
...A thirdl And here's why that figure is so significant...
...Wm...
...Now', the battle cry is Trees Have Rights, Too...
...Ah," said my friend the PDG, "but that's in America, not France...
...Not a spokesman, not an ambassador...
...I presumed it lost on each ticket...
...Thank you...
...Mr check for S is enclosed...
...We were having a marvelous lunch in a little restaurant just a short walk from his office, and in spite of his griefs the PDG seemed cheerful enough...
...He has the glories, but also the miseries, of being in the public opinion business...
...State 30 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JULY 1983 the RATP [the railway system that serves Paris] makes or loses on each fare...
...Instead of encouraging industry to become competitive and increasing workers' incentives for higher output, we push up wages, shorten the working year, pad the public payroll, institute all sorts of measures that we can't afford-unearned social benefits, early retirement, and the likeand in general, instead of belttightening, go on a spending spree...
...For those who are doubtful and confused about the rights and wrongs of this sinister controversy, he is the perfect clarifier...
...I enclose herewith $ . (Please enclose $12.95 per copy desired...
...They may have been politically sympathetic, but why invite to a congress on the influence of culture upon politics a delegation that knows almost nothing about either...
...The offer was rejected indignantly...
...An unofficial emissary...
...The best of these important essays (15 in all) have now been published in a handsome hardcover edition by The Human Life Press...
...Until then, the hemorrhage will continue...
...Instead, we're going to get sicker and sicker...
...Principally, that means that instead of having our Riviera full of Germans, while our tourists go to Spain, the Germans will go to Spain and the French will stay put...
...Now we have spent our reserves, and far from attacking the fundamentals of our illness, we've made them worse...
...Just call me Cassandra...
Vol. 16 • July 1983 • No. 7
