How much money are we talking about here? Chump change, really. Between 60 and 79 million a year depending on who’s counting. It’s barely enough for the tail fins of the latest stealth fighter or a handful of platinum chains for any self-respecting rapper, but it’s the principle that matters.

Ostensibly UNESCO is involved in a variety of commendable activities including poverty reduction, literacy programs, and resource management. As our aforementioned friend Tim King tear-jerkingly puts it:

When it comes to UNESCO, there are no rivals. It is the agency in the world that provides relief and education to the suffering; their work is endless and terribly important.

Perhaps, but it also comes at all times with generous helpings of Cultural Marxist-style social engineering. If I didn’t know better I would be tempted to suggest that UNESCO’s real agenda is worldwide cultural subversion in preparation for some sort of New World Order”€”but that’s crazy talk.

Still, I’ve met a few of these UNESCO cats, and they gave me the willies.

Ronald Reagan, whatever influence his administration’s neocons may have had on him, was right to see through UNESCO’s humanist claptrap to its rabidly far-left essence. He turned off the financial tap in 1984. It wasn’t until 2002 that the “compassionate conservative” and incorrigible spendthrift George W. Bush announced his intention to reinstate UNESCO’s funding.

But what do UNESCO’s lofty humanitarian ideals look like when they go up against the hard realities of international politics? Here’s what:

“After two years of debate and hand-wringing,” The New York Times tells us, the UNESCO executive board has recently approved a “scientific prize” sponsored by Equatorial Guinea’s “repressive” dictator and purported cannibal, Teodoro Obiang Nguemo Mbasogo (yeah, that’s his name). The Times article cites no more compelling reason for the award’s existence than that it may bolster the self-esteem of Dark Continent’s inhabitants. The prize money’s origin is already in question. Let’s hope no food has been snatched from the gaping maws of the downtrodden in the process.

In other news, Syria maintains a seat on UNESCO’s human-rights committee.

What does the average American think of all this? By “€˜average,”€™ I mean those who are not unreasonable Christian Zionists or leftist anti-Israel types driven more by a hatred of the United States than any authentic compassion for the Palestinians. If I may presume to speak for this populist base”€”often mentioned by political candidates but rarely heard from”€”we”€™re tired of our country’s never-ending international involvement to the neglect of its own working and middle-class citizens. Some of us may even be generous souls who aren”€™t completely averse to helping feed the poor abroad. But we”€™d rather not toss another dime at programs administered by UN technocrats preaching the gospel of liberal internationalism.