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Boston artist Steve Mills - realistic painting
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
P. Krugman-Ignoring The Elephant In the Euro
Et Tu, Wolfgang?
Perhaps the most startling and frustrating thing about the debate over the fate of the euro is the way almost everyone avoids confronting the core issue — the elephant in the euro. With a unified currency, adjustment to differential shocks requires adjustments in relative wages — and because the nations of the European periphery have gone from boom to bust, their adjustment must be downward. At this point, wages in Greece/Spain/Portugal/Latvia/Estonia etc. need to fall something like 20-30 percent relative to wages in Germany. Let me repeat that:
WAGES IN THE PERIPHERY NEED TO FALL 20-30 PERCENT RELATIVE TO GERMANY.
But nobody is willing to say that outright. Even the ever-pessimistic (and hence realistic) Wolfgang Munchau writes
None of the governance reform proposals that are currently discussed even attempt to answer the questions of how Spain is going to get out of this hole, and how the competitiveness gap between the north and the south of the eurozone is going to be closed … What the eurozone needs is an increase in domestic consumption in the north, particularly in Germany, and labour and product market reforms in the south, most importantly in Spain.
How many readers will get that what he’s really saying is that
WAGES IN THE PERIPHERY NEED TO FALL 20-30 PERCENT RELATIVE TO GERMANY.
How hard will it be to achieve this? Look at Latvia, which has pursued incredibly draconian austerity. Unemployment has risen from 6 percent before the crisis to 22.3 percent now — and wages are, indeed, falling. But even in Latvia labor costs have fallen only 5.4 percent from their peak; so it will take years of suffering to restore competitiveness.
The official answer is that this just shows the need for more flexible labor markets. But this was a subject we all batted back and forth in the initial debate about the euro, circa 1990: nobody has labor markets that flexible.
If the euro isn’t workable without highly flexible nominal wages, well, it isn’t workable.
Anyway, this is my morning euro rant.
Ignoring The Elephant In the Euro
When the idea of the euro was first broached, there was extensive debate about whether Europe constituted an “optimum currency area”; the key question was whether European nations would have an adequate way to adjust to “asymmetric shocks”, which left some economies more depressed than others. When countries have their own currencies, they can deal with such shocks, at least in part, by devaluing — an argument made most eloquently by none other than Milton Friedman (pdf). Lacking that alternative, something else is needed.
So now we have a euro crisis, which — to me at least — hinges crucially on that very issue. What makes Greek problems so intractable is the fact that there’s little hope for growth for years to come, because Greek costs and prices are out of line and will need years of painful deflation to get back in line. Spain wouldn’t be in trouble at all if it weren’t for the fact that the bubble years left its costs too high, again requiring years of painful deflation.
Yet if you look at many discussions of the euro crisis, they simply ignore the adjustment issue. Not to especially bash Marco Pagano, but how can you write a whole essay on the euro’s troubles without so much as mentioning the problem of getting relative costs and prices in line?
It’s tempting to psychoanalyze here — to note that if you pretend that it’s all about fiscal profligacy, the problem seems solvable with a bit more discipline, but if you admit that the original optimum currency area issues are key to the situation, you wonder whether the common currency really makes sense.
But whatever the reason, it’s stunning to see so many smart people pretending not to notice the elephant in the room.
Organ trafficking
Five Israelis charged with organ trafficking
Ring 'exploited desperate condition of sick people', say Israel police
Israel has charged five of its citizens, including a retired army general, with operating a nationwide organ trafficking ring that ensnared dozens of potential victims. The charges include human trafficking for the purpose of organ harvesting and money laundering.
The indictment says that the ring exploited the desperate condition of sick people and called it a "form of modern slavery." The traffickers allegedly offered up to $100,000 per kidney but in at least two cases did not pay the donors, who were sought through advertisements and then flown from Israel to Europe, South America or Southeast Asia, where the organs were extracted in illegal procedures. Israeli law bans organ sales.
WHO CONTROLS THE U.S.A. MEDIA?
WHO CONTROLS THE U.S.A. MEDIA? THERE IS NO GREATER POWER in the world today than that wielded by the manipulators of public opinion in America. No king or pope of old, no conquering general or high priest ever disposed of a power even remotely approaching that of the few dozen men who control America's mass media of news and entertainment. Their power is not distant and impersonal; it reaches into every home in America, and it works its will during nearly every waking hour. It is the power that shapes and molds the mind of virtually every citizen, young or old, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated. The mass media form for us our image of the world and then tell us what to think about that image. Essentially everything we know—or think we know—about events outside our own neighborhood or circle of acquaintances comes to us via our daily newspaper, our weekly news magazine, our radio, or our television. It is not just the heavy-handed suppression of certain news stories from our newspapers or the blatant propagandizing of history-distorting TV "docudramas" that characterizes the opinion-manipulating techniques of the media masters. They exercise both subtlety and thoroughness in their management of the news and the entertainment that they present to us. For example, the way in which the news is covered: which items are emphasized and which are played down; the reporter's choice of words, tone of voice, and facial expressions; the wording of headlines; the choice of illustrations—all of these things subliminally and yet profoundly affect the way in which we interpret what we see or hear. On top of this, of course, the columnists and editors remove any remaining doubt from our minds as to just what we are to think about it all. Employing carefully developed psychological techniques, they guide our thought and opinion so that we can be in tune with the "in" crowd, the "beautiful people," the "smart money." They let us know exactly what our attitudes should be toward various types of people and behavior by placing those people or that behavior in the context of a TV drama or situation comedy and having the other TV characters react in the Politically Correct way. Molding American Minds For example, a racially mixed couple will be respected, liked, and socially sought after by other characters, as will a "take charge" Black scholar or businessman, or a sensitive and talented homosexual, or a poor but honest and hardworking illegal alien from Mexico. On the other hand, a White racist—that is, any racially conscious White person who looks askance at miscegenation or at the rapidly darkening racial situation in America—is portrayed, at best, as a despicable bigot who is reviled by the other characters, or, at worst, as a dangerous psychopath who is fascinated by firearms and is a menace to all law-abiding citizens. The White racist "gun nut," in fact, has become a familiar stereotype on TV shows. The average American, of whose daily life TV-watching takes such an unhealthy portion, distinguishes between these fictional situations and reality only with difficulty, if at all. He responds to the televised actions, statements, and attitudes of TV actors much as he does to his own peers in real life. For all too many Americans the real world has been replaced by the false reality of the TV environment, and it is to this false reality that his urge to conform responds. Thus, when a TV scriptwriter expresses approval of some ideas and actions through the TV characters for whom he is writing, and disapproval of others, he exerts a powerful pressure on millions of viewers toward conformity with his own views. And as it is with TV entertainment, so it is also with the news, whether televised or printed. The insidious thing about this form of thought control is that even when we realize that entertainment or news is biased, the media masters still are able to manipulate most of us. This is because they not only slant what they present, but also they establish tacit boundaries and ground rules for the permissible spectrum of opinion. As an example, consider the media treatment of Middle East news. Some editors or commentators are slavishly pro-Israel in their every utterance, while others seem nearly neutral. No one, however, dares suggest that the U.S. government is backing the wrong side in the Arab-Jewish conflict, or that 9-11 was a result of that support. Nor does anyone dare suggest that it served Jewish interests, rather than American interests, to send U.S. forces to cripple Iraq, Israel's principal rival in the Middle East. Thus, a spectrum of permissible opinion, from pro-Israel to nearly neutral, is established. Another example is the media treatment of racial issues in the United States. Some commentators seem almost dispassionate in reporting news of racial strife, while others are emotionally partisan—with the partisanship always on the non-White side. All of the media spokesmen without exception, however, take the position that "multiculturalism" and racial mixing are here to stay and that they are good things. Because there are differences in degree, however, most Americans fail to realize that they are being manipulated. Even the citizen who complains about "managed news" falls into the trap of thinking that because he is presented with an apparent spectrum of opinion he can escape the thought controllers' influence by believing the editor or commentator of his choice. It's a "heads I win, tails you lose" situation. Every point on the permissible spectrum of public opinion is acceptable to the media masters—and no impermissible fact or viewpoint is allowed any exposure at all, if they can prevent it. The control of the opinion-molding media is nearly monolithic. All of the controlled media—television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, motion pictures—speak with a single voice, each reinforcing the other. Despite the appearance of variety, there is no real dissent, no alternative source of facts or ideas accessible to the great mass of people that might allow them to form opinions at odds with those of the media masters. They are presented with a single view of the world—a world in which every voice proclaims the equality of the races, the inerrant nature of the Jewish "Holocaust" tale, the wickedness of attempting to halt the flood of non-White aliens pouring across our borders, the danger of permitting citizens to keep and bear arms, the moral equivalence of all sexual orientations, and the desirability of a "pluralistic," cosmopolitan society rather than a homogeneous, White one. It is a view of the world designed by the media masters to suit their own ends—and the pressure to conform to that view is overwhelming. People adapt their opinions to it, vote in accord with it, and shape their lives to fit it. And who are these all-powerful masters of the media? As we shall see, to a very large extent they are Jews. It isn't simply a matter of the media being controlled by profit-hungry capitalists, some of whom happen to be Jews. If that were the case, the ethnicity of the media masters would reflect, at least approximately, the ratio of rich Gentiles to rich Jews. Despite a few prominent exceptions, the preponderance of Jews in the media is so overwhelming that we are obliged to assume that it is due to more than mere happenstance. Electronic News & Entertainment Media Continuing government deregulation of the telecommunications industry has resulted, not in the touted increase of competition, but rather in an accelerating wave of corporate mergers and acquisitions that have produced a handful of multi-billion-dollar media conglomerates. The largest of these conglomerates are rapidly growing even bigger by consuming their competition, almost tripling in size during the 1990s. Whenever you watch television, whether from a local broadcasting station or via cable or a satellite dish; whenever you see a feature film in a theater or at home; whenever you listen to the radio or to recorded music; whenever you read a newspaper, book, or magazine—it is very likely that the information or entertainment you receive was produced and/or distributed by one of these megamedia companies: Time Warner. The largest media conglomerate today is Time Warner (briefly called AOL-Time Warner; the AOL was dropped from the name when accounting practices at the AOL division were questioned by government investigators), which reached its current form when America Online bought Time Warner for $160 billion in 2000. The combined company had revenue of $39.5 billion in 2003. The merger brought together Steve Case, a Gentile, as chairman of AOL-Time Warner, and Gerald Levin, a Jew, as the CEO. Warner, founded by the Jewish Warner brothers in the early part of the last century, rapidly became part of the Jewish power base in Hollywood, a fact so well-known that it is openly admitted by Jewish authors, as is the fact that each new media acquisition becomes dominated by Jews in turn: Speaking of the initial merger of Time, Inc. with Warner, Jewish writer Michael Wolff said in New York magazine in 2001 "since Time Inc.'s merger with Warner ten years ago, one of the interesting transitions is that it has become a Jewish company." ("From AOL to W," New York magazine, January 29, 2001) The third most powerful man at AOL-Time Warner, at least on paper, was Vice Chairman Ted Turner, a White Gentile. Turner had traded his Turner Broadcasting System, which included CNN, to Time Warner in 1996 for a large block of Time Warner shares. By April 2001 Levin had effectively fired Ted Turner, eliminating him from any real power. However, Turner remained a very large and outspoken shareholder and member of the board of directors. Levin overplayed his hand, and in a May 2002 showdown, he was fired by the company's board. For Ted Turner, who had lost $7 billion of his $9 billion due to Levin's mismanagement, it was small solace. Turner remains an outsider with no control over the inner workings of the company. Also under pressure, Steve Case resigned effective in May 2003. The board replaced both Levin and Case with a Black, Richard Parsons. Behind Parsons the Jewish influence and power remains dominant. AOL is the largest Internet service provider in the world, with 34 million U.S. subscribers. It is now being used as an online platform for the Jewish content from Time Warner. Jodi Kahn and Meg Siesfeld, both Jews, lead the Time Inc. Interactive team under executive editor Ned Desmond, a White Gentile. All three report to Time Inc. editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine, a Jew. Their job is to transfer Time Warner's content to target specific segments of America Online's audience, especially women, children, and teens. Time Warner was already the second largest of the international media leviathans when it merged with AOL. Time Warner's subsidiary HBO (26 million subscribers) is the nation's largest pay-TV cable network. HBO's "competitor" Cinemax is another of Time Warner's many cable ventures. Until the purchase in May 1998 of PolyGram by Jewish billionaire Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music was America's largest record company, with 50 labels. Warner Music was an early promoter of "gangsta rap." Through its involvement with Interscope Records (prior to Interscope's acquisition by another Jewish-owned media firm), it helped to popularize a genre whose graphic lyrics explicitly urge Blacks to commit acts of violence against Whites. Bronfman purchased Warner Music in 2004, keeping it solidly in Jewish hands. In addition to cable and music, Time Warner is heavily involved in the production of feature films (Warner Brothers Studio, Castle Rock Entertainment, and New Line Cinema). Time Warner's publishing division is managed by its editor-in-chief, Norman Pearlstine, a Jew. He controls 50 magazines including Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, and People. Book publishing ventures include Time-Life Books, Book-of-the-Month Club, Little Brown, and many others. Time Warner also owns Shoutcast and Winamp, the very tools that most independent Internet radio broadcasters rely on, and, as a dominant player in the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), was essentially "negotiating" with itself when Internet radio music royalty rules were set that strongly favored large content providers and forced many small broadcasters into silence. (The Register, "AOL Time Warner takes grip of net radio," 8th April 2003) Ted Turner's Lesson: "Be very careful with whom you merge." When Ted Turner, the Gentile media maverick, made a bid to buy CBS in 1985, there was panic in the media boardrooms across the country. Turner had made a fortune in advertising and then built a successful cable-TV news network, CNN, with over 70 million subscribers. Although Turner had never taken a stand contrary to Jewish interests, he was regarded by William Paley and the other Jews at CBS as uncontrollable: a loose cannon who might at some time in the future turn against them. Furthermore, Jewish newsman Daniel Schorr, who had worked for Turner, publicly charged that his former boss held a personal dislike for Jews. To block Turner's bid, CBS executives invited billionaire Jewish theater, hotel, insurance, and cigarette magnate Laurence Tisch to launch a "friendly" takeover of CBS. From 1986 to 1995 Tisch was the chairman and CEO of CBS, removing any threat of non-Jewish influence there. Subsequent efforts by Ted Turner to acquire CBS were obstructed by Gerald Levin's Time Warner, which owned nearly 20 percent of CBS stock and had veto power over major deals. But when his fellow Jew Sumner Redstone offered to buy CBS for $34.8 billion in 1999, Levin had no objections. Thus, despite being an innovator and garnering headlines, Turner never commanded the "connections" necessary for being a media master. He finally decided if you can't lick 'em, join 'em, and he sold out to Levin's Time Warner. Ted Turner summed it up: "I've had an incredible life for the most part. I made a lot of smart moves, and I made a lot of money. Then something happened, and I merged with Time Warner, which looked like the right thing to do at the time. And it was good for shareholders. Disney. The second-largest media conglomerate today, with 2003 revenues of $27.1 billion, is the Walt Disney Company. Its leading personality and CEO, Michael Eisner, is a Jew. The Disney empire, headed by a man described by one media analyst as a "control freak," includes several television production companies (Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Television) and cable networks with more than 100 million subscribers altogether. As for feature films, the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group includes Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, and Caravan Pictures. Disney also owns Miramax Films, run by the Jewish Weinstein brothers, Bob and Harvey, who have produced such ultra-raunchy movies as The Crying Game, Priest, and Kids. When the Disney Company was run by the Gentile Disney family prior to its takeover by Eisner in 1984, it epitomized wholesome family entertainment. While it still holds the rights to Snow White, the company under Eisner has expanded into the production of a great deal of so-called "adult" material. In August 1995, Eisner acquired Capital Cities/ABC, Inc., which owns the ABC television network, which in turn owns ten TV stations outright in such big markets as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston. In addition, in the United States ABC has 225 affiliated TV stations, over 2,900 affiliated radio stations and produces over 7,200 radio programs. ABC owns 54 radio stations and operates 57 radio stations, many in major cities such as New York, Washington, and Los Angeles. Radio Disney, part of ABC Radio Networks, provides programming targeting children. Sports network ESPN, an ABC cable subsidiary, is headed by President and CEO George W. Bodenheimer, who is a Jew. The corporation also controls the Disney Channel, Toon Disney, A&E, Lifetime Television, SOAPnet and the History Channel, with between 86 and 88 million subscribers each. The ABC Family television network has 84 million subscribers and, in addition to broadcasting entertainment (some of it quite raunchy for a "family" channel), is also the network outlet for Christian Zionist TV evangelist Pat Robertson. Although primarily a telecommunications company, ABC/Disney earns over $1 billion in publishing, owning Walt Disney Company Book Publishing, Hyperion Books, and Miramax Books. It also owns six daily newspapers and publishes over 20 magazines. Disney Publishing Worldwide publishes books and magazines in 55 languages in 74 countries, reaching more than 100 million readers each month On the Internet, Disney runs Buena Vista Internet Group, ABC Internet Group, ABC.com, ABCNEWS.com, Oscar.com, Mr. Showbiz, Disney Online, Disney's Daily Blast, Disney.com, Family.com, ESPN Internet Group, ESPN.sportzone.com, Soccernet.com, NFL.com, NBA.com, Infoseek (partial ownership), and Disney Interactive. Viacom. Number three on the list, with 2003 revenues of just over $26.5 billion, is Viacom, Inc., headed by Sumner Redstone (born Murray Rothstein), a Jew. Melvin A. Karmazin, another Jew, was number two at Viacom until June 2004, holding the positions of president and chief operating officer. Karmazin remains a large Viacom shareholder. Replacing Karmazin as co-presidents and co-COOs are a Jew, Leslie Moonves, and Tom Freston, a possible Jew. (We have been unable to confirm Freston's Jewish ancestry; he has done work for Jewish organizations and was involved in the garment trade, a heavily Jewish industry, importing clothing from the Third World to the U.S. in the 1970s.) Viacom produces and distributes TV programs for the three largest networks, owns 39 television stations outright with another 200 affiliates in its wholly-owned CBS Television Network, owns 185 radio stations in its Infinity radio group, and has over 1,500 affiliated stations through its CBS Radio Network. It produces feature films through Paramount Pictures, headed by Jewess Sherry Lansing (born Sherry Lee Heimann), who is planning to retire at the end of 2005. Viacom was formed in 1971 as a way to dodge an anti-monopoly FCC ruling that required CBS to spin off a part of its cable TV operations and syndicated programming business. This move by the government unfortunately did nothing to reduce the mostly Jewish collaborative monopoly that remains the major problem with the industry. In 1999, after CBS had again augmented itself by buying King World Productions (a leading TV program syndicator), Viacom acquired its progenitor company, CBS, in a double mockery of the spirit of the 1971 ruling. Redstone acquired CBS following the December 1999 stockholders' votes at CBS and Viacom. CBS Television has long been headed by the previously mentioned Leslie Moonves; the other Viacom co-president, Tom Freston, headed wholly-owned MTV. Viacom also owns the Country Music Television and The Nashville Network cable channels and is the largest outdoor advertising (billboards, etc.) entity in the U.S. Viacom's publishing division includes Simon & Schuster, Scribner, The Free Press, Fireside, and Archway Paperbacks. It distributes videos through its over 8,000 Blockbuster stores. It is also involved in satellite broadcasting, theme parks, and video games.  Viacom's chief claim to fame, however, is as the world's largest provider of cable programming through its Showtime, MTV, Nickelodeon, Black Entertainment Television, and other networks. Since 1989 MTV and Nickelodeon have acquired larger and larger shares of the juvenile television audience. MTV dominates the television market for viewers between the ages of 12 and 24.Sumner Redstone owns 76 per cent of the shares of Viacom. He offers Jackass as a teen role model and pumps MTV's racially mixed rock and rap videos into 342 million homes in 140 countries and is a dominant cultural influence on White teenagers around the world. MTV also makes race-mixing movies like Save the Last Dance. Nickelodeon, with over 87 million subscribers, has by far the largest share of the four-to-11-year-old TV audience in America and is expanding rapidly into Europe. Most of its shows do not yet display the blatant degeneracy that is MTV's trademark, but Redstone is gradually nudging the fare presented to his kiddie viewers toward the same poison purveyed by MTV. Nickelodeon continues a 12-year streak as the top cable network for children and younger teenagers. NBC Universal. Another Jewish media mogul is Edgar Bronfman, Jr. He headed Seagram Company, Ltd., the liquor giant, until its recent merger with Vivendi. His father, Edgar Bronfman, Sr., is president of the World Jewish Congress. Seagram owned Universal Studios and later purchased Interscope Records, the foremost promoter of "gangsta rap," from Warner. Universal and Interscope now belong to Vivendi Universal, which merged with NBC in May 2004, with the parent company now called NBC Universal. Bronfman became the biggest man in the record business in May 1998 when he also acquired control of PolyGram, the European record giant, by paying $10.6 billion to the Dutch electronics manufacturer Philips. In June 2000, the Bronfman family traded Seagram to Vivendi for stock in Vivendi, and Edgar, Jr. became vice chairman of Vivendi. Vivendi was originally a French utilities company, and was then led by Gentile Jean-Marie Messier. A board of directors faction led by Bronfman forced Messier to resign in July 2002. Vivendi also acquired bisexual Jew Barry Diller's USA Networks in 2002. (Diller is the owner of InterActive Corporation, which owns Expedia, Ticketmaster, The Home Shopping Network, Lending Tree, Hotels.com, CitySearch, Evite, Match.com, and other Internet businesses.) Vivendi combined the USA Network, Universal Studios, Universal Television, and theme parks into Vivendi Universal Entertainment (VUE). After the Vivendi-NBC merger, Bronfman used his considerable personal profits to strike out on his own, and recently purchased Warner Music from Jewish-dominated Time Warner. The current chairman of NBC Universal is a Gentile often associated with Jewish causes, long-time NBC employee Bob Wright. Ron Meyer, a Jew, is president and chief operating officer of Universal Studios. Stacey Snider, also Jewish, is the chairman of Universal Pictures. The president of NBC Universal Television Group is Jeff Zucker, another Jew. With two of the top four media conglomerates in the hands of Jews (Disney and Viacom), with Jewish executives running the media operations of NBC Universal, and with Jews filling a large proportion of the executive jobs at Time Warner, it is unlikely that such an overwhelming degree of control came about without a deliberate, concerted effort on the Jews' part. Other media companies: Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation owns Fox Television Network, Fox News, the FX Channel, 20th Century Fox Films, Fox 2000, and publisher Harper Collins. News Corp. is the fifth largest megamedia corporation in the nation, with 2003 revenues of approximately $19.2 billion. It is the only other media company which comes close to the top four. Its Fox News Channel has been a key outlet pushing the Jewish neoconservative agenda that lies behind the Iraq War and which animates both the administration of George W. Bush and the "new conservatism" that embraces aggressive Zionism and multiracialism. Murdoch is nominally a Gentile, but there is some uncertainty about his ancestry and he has vigorously supported Zionism and other Jewish causes throughout his life. (Historian David Irving has published information from a claimed high-level media source who says that Murdoch's mother, Elisabeth Joy Greene, was Jewish, but we have not been able to confirm this.) Murdoch's number two executive is Peter Chernin, who is president and chief operating officer—and a Jew. Under Chernin, Jews hold key positions in the company: Gail Berman runs Fox Entertainment Group; Mitchell Stern heads satellite television division DirecTV; Jane Friedman is chairman and CEO of Harper Collins; and Thomas Rothman is chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment. News Corporation also owns the New York Post and TV Guide, and both are published under Chernin's supervision. The primary printed neoconservative journal, The Weekly Standard, is also published by News Corporation and edited by William Kristol, a leading Jewish neocon spokesman and "intellectual." Most of the television and movie production companies that are not owned by the large media corporations are also controlled by Jews. For example, Spyglass, an "independent" film producer which has made such films as The Sixth Sense, The Insider, and Shanghai Noon, is controlled by its Jewish founders Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum, who are co-chairmen. Jonathan Glickman serves as president and Paul Neinstein is executive vice president. Both men are Jews. Spyglass makes movies exclusively for DreamWorks SKG. The best known of the smaller media companies, DreamWorks SKG, is a strictly kosher affair. DreamWorks was formed in 1994 amid great media hype by recording industry mogul David Geffen, former Disney Pictures chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, and film director Steven Spielberg, all three of whom are Jews. The company produces movies, animated films, television programs, and recorded music. Considering the cash and connections that Geffen, Katzenberg, and Spielberg have, DreamWorks may soon be in the same league as the big four. One major studio, Columbia Pictures, is owned by the Japanese multinational firm Sony. Nevertheless, the studio's chairman is Jewess Amy Pascal, and its output fully reflects the Jewish social agenda. Sony's music division recently merged with European music giant BMG to form Sony BMG Music Entertainment, now one of the world's largest music distributors. It is headed by CEO Andrew Lack, formerly president and CEO of NBC—and a Jew. Sony's overall American operations are headed by a Jew named Howard Stringer, formerly of CBS, who hired Lack. It is well known that Jews have controlled most of the production and distribution of films since shortly after the inception of the movie industry in the early decades of the 20th century. When Walt Disney died in 1966, the last barrier to the total Jewish domination of Hollywood was gone, and Jews were able to grab ownership of the company that Walt built. Since then they have had everything their way in the movie industry. Films produced by seven of the firms mentioned above—Disney, Warner Brothers, Paramount (Viacom), Universal (NBC Universal), 20th Century Fox (News Corp.), DreamWorks, and Columbia (Sony)—accounted for 94% of total box-office receipts for the year 2003. The big three in television network broadcasting used to be ABC, CBS, and NBC. With the consolidation of the media empires, these three are no longer independent entities. While they were independent, however, each was controlled by a Jew since its inception: ABC by Leonard Goldenson; NBC first by David Sarnoff and then by his son Robert; and CBS first by William Paley and then by Laurence Tisch. Over several decades these networks were staffed from top to bottom with Jews, and the essential Jewishness of network television did not change when the networks were absorbed by other Jewish-dominated media corporations. The Jewish presence in television news remains particularly strong. NBC provides a good example of this. The president of NBC News is Neal Shapiro. Jeff Zucker is NBC Universal Television Group president. Reporting directly to Zucker is his close friend Jonathan Wald, formerly an NBC program producer, now a senior consultant for CNBC. David M. Zaslav is president of NBC Cable (and also a director of digital video firm TiVo Inc.). The president of MSNBC is Rick Kaplan. All of these men are Jews. A similar preponderance of Jews exists in the news divisions of the other networks. Sumner Redstone, Tom Freston, and Les Moonves control Viacom's CBS. Moonves demonstrated his power in 2002 by replacing the entire staff of the new CBS Early Show. He is also a great-nephew of Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister. Al Ortiz (also a Jew) is executive producer and director of special events coverage for CBS News. Senior executive producer Michael Bass and Victor Neufeld (formerly producer of ABC's 20/20) produce the CBS Early Show; both are Jews. At ABC, David Westin, who is a Jew according to Jeffrey Blankfort of the Middle East Labor Bulletin, is the president of ABC News. The senior vice president for news at ABC is Paul Slavin, also a Jew. Bernard Gershon, a Jew, is senior vice president/general manager of the ABC News Digital Media Group, in charge of ABCNEWS.com, ABC News Productions, and ABC News Video Source. The Print Media After television news, daily newspapers are the most influential information medium in America. About 58 million of them are sold (and presumably read) each day. These millions are divided among some 1,456 different publications. One might conclude that the sheer number of different newspapers across America would provide a safeguard against minority control and distortion. Alas, such is not the case. There is less independence, less competition, and much less representation of majority interests than a casual observer would think. In 1945, four out of five American newspapers were independently owned and published by local people with close ties to their communities. Those days, however, are gone. Most of the independent newspapers were bought out or driven out of business by the mid-1970s. Today most "local" newspapers are owned by a rather small number of large companies controlled by executives who live and work hundreds or even thousands of miles away. Today less than 20 percent of the country's 1,456 papers are independently owned; the rest belong to multi-newspaper chains. Only 103 of the total number have circulations of more than 100,000. Only a handful are large enough to maintain independent reporting staffs outside their own communities; the rest must depend on these few for all of their national and international news. The Associated Press (AP), which sells content to newspapers, is currently under the control of its Jewish vice president and managing editor, Michael Silverman, who directs the day-to-day news reporting and supervises the editorial departments. Silverman had directed the AP's national news as assistant managing editor, beginning in 1989. Jewess Ann Levin is AP's national news editor. Silverman and Levin are under Jonathan Wolman, also a Jew, who was promoted to senior vice president of AP in November 2002. In only two per cent of the cities in America is there more than one daily newspaper, and competition is frequently nominal even among them, as between morning and afternoon editions under the same ownership or under joint operating agreements. Much of the competition has disappeared through the monopolistic tactics of the Jewish Newhouse family's holding company, Advance Publications. Advance publications buys one of two competing newspapers, and then starts an advertising war by slashing advertising rates, which drives both papers to the edge of bankruptcy. Advance Publications then steps in and buys the competing newspaper. Often both papers continue: one as a morning paper and the other as an evening paper. Eventually, though, one of the papers is closed—giving the Newhouse brothers the only daily newspaper in that city. For example, in 2001 the Newhouses closed the Syracuse Herald-Journalleaving their other Syracuse newspaper, the Post-Journal, with a monopoly. The Newhouse media empire provides an example of more than the lack of real competition among America's daily newspapers: it also illustrates the insatiable appetite Jews have shown for all the organs of opinion control on which they could fasten their grip. The Newhouses own 31 daily newspapers, including several large and important ones, such as the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Newark Star-Ledger, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune; Newhouse Broadcasting, consisting of television stations and cable operations; the Sunday supplement Parade, with a circulation of more than 35 million copies per week; some two dozen major magazines, including The New Yorker,Vogue, Wired, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Bride's, Gentlemen's Quarterly, Self, House & Garden, and all the other magazines of the wholly-owned Conde Nast group. The staffing of the magazines is, as you might expect, quite Kosher. Parade can serve as an example: Its publisher is Randy Siegel, its editor and senior vice president is Lee Kravitz, its creative director is Ira Yoffe, its science editor is David H. Levy, and its health editor is Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld. This Jewish media empire was founded by the late Samuel Newhouse, an immigrant from Russia. When he died in 1979 at the age of 84, he bequeathed media holdings worth an estimated $1.3 billion to his two sons, Samuel and Donald. With a number of further acquisitions, the net worth of Advance Publications has grown to more than $9 billion today. The gobbling up of so many newspapers by the Newhouse family was facilitated by newspapers' revenue structure. Newspapers, to a large degree, are not supported by their subscribers but by their advertisers. It is advertising revenue—not the small change collected from a newspaper's readers—that largely pays the editor's salary and yields the owner's profit. Whenever the large advertisers in a city choose to favor one newspaper over another with their business, the favored newspaper will flourish while its competitor dies. Since the beginning of the last century, when Jewish mercantile power in America became a dominant economic force, there has been a steady rise in the number of American newspapers in Jewish hands, accompanied by a steady decline in the number of competing Gentile newspapers—to some extent a result of selective advertising policies by Jewish merchants. Furthermore, even those newspapers still under Gentile ownership and management are so thoroughly dependent upon Jewish advertising revenue that their editorial and news reporting policies are largely constrained by Jewish likes and dislikes. It holds true in the newspaper business as elsewhere that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Three Jewish Newspapers The suppression of competition and the establishment of local monopolies on the dissemination of news and opinion have characterized the rise of Jewish control over America's newspapers. The resulting ability of the Jews to use the press as an unopposed instrument of Jewish policy could hardly be better illustrated than by the examples of the nation's three most prestigious and influential newspapers: the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. These three, dominating America's financial and political capitals, are the newspapers that set the trends and the guidelines for nearly all the others. They are the ones that decide what is news and what isn't at the national and international levels. They originate the news; the others merely copy it. And all three newspapers are in Jewish hands. The New York Times, with a 2003 circulation of 1,119,000, is the unofficial social, fashion, entertainment, political, and cultural guide of the nation. It tells America's "smart set" which books to buy and which films to see; which opinions are in style at the moment; which politicians, educators, spiritual leaders, artists, and businessmen are the real comers. And for a few decades in the 19th century it was a genuinely American newspaper. The New York Times was founded in 1851 by two Gentiles, Henry J. Raymond and George Jones. After their deaths, it was purchased in 1896 from Jones's estate by a wealthy Jewish publisher, Adolph Ochs. His great-great-grandson, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., is the paper's current publisher and the chairman of the New York Times Co. Russell T. Lewis, also a Jew, is president and chief executive officer of The New York Times Company. Michael Golden, another Jew, is vice chairman. Martin Nisenholtz, a Jew, runs their massive Internet operations. The Sulzberger family also owns, through the New York Times Co., 33 other newspapers, including the Boston Globe, purchased in June 1993 for $1.1 billion; eight TV and two radio broadcasting stations; and more than 40 news-oriented Web operations. It also publishes theInternational Herald Tribune, the most widely distributed English-language daily in the world. The New York Times News Service transmits news stories, features, and photographs from the New York Times by wire to 506 other newspapers, news agencies, and magazines. Of similar national importance is the Washington Post, which, by establishing its "leaks" throughout government agencies in Washington, has an inside track on news involving the Federal government. The Washington Post, like the New York Times, had a non-Jewish origin. It was established in 1877 by Stilson Hutchins, purchased from him in 1905 by John R. McLean, and later inherited by Edward B. McLean. In June 1933, however, at the height of the Great Depression, the newspaper was forced into bankruptcy. It was purchased at a bankruptcy auction by Eugene Meyer, a Jewish financier and former partner of the infamous Bernard Baruch, a Jew who was industry czar in America during the First World War. The Washington Post was run by Katherine Meyer Graham, Eugene Meyer's daughter, until her death in 2001. She was the principal stockholder and board chairman of the Washington Post Company; and she appointed her son, Donald Graham, publisher of the paper in 1979. Donald became Washington Post Company CEO in 1991 and its board chairman in 1993, and the chain of Jewish control at the Post remains unbroken. The newspaper has a daily circulation of 732,000, and its Sunday edition sells over one million copies. The Washington Post Company has a number of other media holdings in newspapers (the Gazette Newspapers, including 11 military publications); in television (WDIV in Detroit, KPRC in Houston, WPLG in Miami, WKMG in Orlando, KSAT in San Antonio, WJXT in Jacksonville); and in magazines, most notably the nation's number-two weekly newsmagazine, Newsweek. The Washington Post Company's various television ventures reach a total of about 12 million homes, and its cable TV service, Cable One, has 750,000 subscribers. The Wall Street Journal sells 1,820,000 copies each weekday and is owned by Dow Jones & Company, Inc., a New York corporation that also publishes 33 other newspapers and the weekly financial tabloid Barron's. The chairman and CEO of Dow Jones is Peter R. Kann, who is a Jew. Kann also holds the posts of chairman and publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Most of New York's other major newspapers are in no better hands than the New York Times and theWall Street Journal. In January 1993 the New York Daily News (circulation 729,000) was bought from the estate of the late Jewish media mogul Robert Maxwell (born Ludvik Hoch) by Jewish real-estate developer Mortimer B. Zuckerman. Another Jew, Les Goodstein, is the president and chief operating officer of the New York Daily News. And, as mentioned above, the neocon-slanted New York Post(circulation 652,000) is owned by News Corporation under the supervision of Jew Peter Chernin. News Magazines The story is much the same for other media as it is for television, radio, films, music, and newspapers. Consider, for example, newsmagazines. There are only three of any importance published in the United States: Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report. Time, with a weekly circulation of 4.1 million, is published by a subsidiary of Time Warner Communications, the news media conglomerate formed by the 1989 merger of Time, Inc., with Warner Communications. The editor-in-chief of Time Warner Communication is Norman Pearlstine, a Jew. Newsweek, as mentioned above, is published by the Washington Post Company, under the Jew Donald Graham. Its weekly circulation is 3.2 million. U.S. News & World Report, with a weekly circulation of 2.0 million, is owned and published by the aforementioned Mortimer B. Zuckerman, who also has taken the position of editor-in-chief of the magazine for himself. Zuckerman also owns New York's tabloid newspaper, the Daily News, which is the sixth-largest paper in the nation. |
WHO CONTROLS THE CANADIAN MEDIA?
WHO CONTROLS THE CANADIAN MEDIA?
If you thought Jews dominated the American media, it's nothing compared to our northern neighbor. Jews have an absolute stranglehold on the Canadian media. Nearly every Canadian newspaper of any size is owned by Jews.
Canadian Media Moguls: Israel
Halifax Daily News; St. John's Telegram; Charlottetown Guardian; Montreal Gazette; Ottawa Citizen; Windsor Star; St. Catherine’s Standard; Regina Leader Post; Saskatoon Star Phoenix; Calgary Herald; Edmonton Journal; Vancouver Province; Vancouver Sun; Victoria Times-Colonist.
Asper also owns 126 other daily and weekly papers across Canada
(partnership interest); Cowichan Valley Citizen (Duncan); Delta Optimist; Harbour City Star; Lake Cowichan News; Langley Advance; Maple Ridge Times; Monthly Star Homes; Nanaimo Daily News; New Westminster Record; North Shore News; Now Community Parksville/Qualicum Beach; Morning Sun; Pennyworth Shopper; Real Estate Weekly; Richmond News; TV Scene; Vancouver Courier; Westerly News.
In addition, the Aspers control the following televised media sources:
Global Television Network (8 regional channels including Edmonton's ITV and Vancouver's VTV); Fox Sportsworld Canada; Lone Star; Deja View; Mystery Channel; CHEK Victoria; CHTV Hamilton; CHBC Okanagan.
They also own Fireworks Entertainment and 8 other foreign channels and numerous radio stations across the globe.
Other notable Jews in positions of power in the Canadian media include Robert Rabinovitch, President and CEO of CBC Radio and Television, and Heather Reisman, who owns Indigo Books and Chapters.
WHO CONTROLS THE BRITISH MEDIA?
WHO CONTROLS THE BRITISH MEDIA?
As in America, Jews have an almost total grip on the both the electronic and printed media in Britain, and consequently shape ‘public opinion’ and government policy by simply choosing which news they wish to disseminate, and in what manner. In this way, they have promoted the ‘multicultural and multiracial’ policy of Third World immigration and ‘anti-racism’ for so long, that they have nearly succeeded in demonizing even the slightest opposition to such policies.
Television and Radio
ITV
The Independent Television (ITV) network is divided into fourteen regions, all of which are controlled by two Jewish-controlled companies, Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc. Carlton controls Central, London, West Country, and HTV Wales and West: while Granada controls Anglia, Border, Granada, London Weekend, Meridian, Tyne Tees, and Yorkshire. The Jew Michael Green heads up Carlton Communications plc., and the Jew Steve Morrison heads up Granada plc.
Carlton Channels division also includes 50% of London News Network, 25% of GMTV and 20% of Independent Television News (ITN). Carlton Productions is a major producer for ITV, producing drama, entertainment, factual, comedy, and children’s titles, investing over £200m a year in producing new television programs for ITV, BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and digital channels. It includes the producer Planet 24, responsible for Gay Time TV, and the supplier of game show formats Action Time. Carlton International controls and sells a library of 2,000 films and 18,000 hours of television programs to over 100 countries. Carlton America produces seventeen films for television each year. Green is also Director of ITN, which provides the news for the ITV network, of GMTV Limited and of Thomson multimedia in France. He is also Chairman of the Media Trust.
Granada plc. owns seven of the ITV stations: Anglia, Border, Granada, London Weekend, Meridian, Tyne Tees and Yorkshire. It broadcasts to 60% of Britain’s homes. Its other ITV investments are ITN (20%), GMTV (25%), London News Network (50%), and the Scottish Media Group (18.1%), which controls Grampian, and Scottish. Granada Creative produces nearly 9000 hours of original television programs and films per year, which it sells to more than 120 countries. It made 60 % of the ITV Network’s original programs in 2000.
BBC TV
Managing Director of this formally state-owned broadcaster is the Jew Tony Cohen. The Jew Alan Yentob is Director of Drama, Entertainment, and Children’s Program for all of BBC television. Formerly, Yentob was Director of Television from 1997 to 2000, and before that, Director of Programs.
According to Broadcast magazine in 1996, his former title gave him "control over all non-news BBC programs including those for satellite channels and those in English for the World Service." The atheist Jew, Alan Bookbinder, has headed up BBC’s Religion and Ethics division since July 2001.
BBC Radio
The Jewess Jenny Abramsky is Director of BBC Radio and Music and has control of all of BBC Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Live, and of the BBC’s digital radio operation. Abramsky is the most powerful executive in radio in the UK, public service or commercial: with control of the five national radio stations, she oversees 49% of all radio listening in Britain. She has an annual programming budget of £290 million, a staff of 600 and takes home £258, 000. She has spent over 30 years in BBC Radio, only taking a two-year break as Director of the BBC Continuous News Services. Abramsky has also been a Governor of the British Film Industry since February 2000.
BSkyB
British Sky Broadcasting is a significant television broadcaster in the United Kingdom, and a part of the global media empire, News Corporation. Newscorp is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who had a Jewish mother, Elizabeth Green. According to Jewish law, this makes him Jewish. His daughter, who is chief executive of BSkyB, is married to a Negro. British Sky Broadcasting is Britain’s leading pay-TV provider and one of the world’s top 250 companies. It broadcasts news, entertainment, and sports programs to over 10 million subscribers and their families in Britain and Ireland, which includes five and a half million subscribers to its digital satellite service, which was launched in 1998 with 140 channels. By 1999, satellite and cable television channels accounted for over 15% of total UK viewing. Murdoch has spoken of "my faith and News Corporation’s faith in the integrity and worthiness of the Zionist undertaking," and has explained that, "I have always believed in the future of Israel and the goals of the international Jewish community."
Pinewood-Shepperton Limited
Pinewood-Shepperton Limited is the result of the merger of Britain’s two leading film and television production studios, Pinewood and Shepperton. It is controlled by the Jew Michael Grade, who is the nephew of the Jew Lew Grade, also a film producer and one of the founders of the ITV network. Michael Grade was formerly Controller of BBC 1 in 1984, Director of BBC Programs in 1986, and as Chief Executive of Channel 4 from 1988 to 1997, he was dubbed "pornographer-in-chief" by the Daily Mail.
Newspapers
Express Newspapers
Express Newspapers owns the Daily Express, the Sunday Express, and the Daily Star. The Daily Express has an average daily circulation of 927,785, and is Britain’s second leading mid-market paper. The Sunday Express has an average circulation of 842, 003, and the Daily Star 828,823. All together Express Newspapers distributes an average 13 million newspapers in Britain per week. Express Newspapers was bought in November 2000 by the Jew Richard Desmond, who made his fortune in pornography.
News International
Rupert Murdoch, (discussed earlier under BSkyB) also owns News International, which runs The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times, and News of the World. The latter has an average daily circulation of 4,042,714, and The Sun of 3,507,176. They are the two best selling daily papers in Britain, with a joint average daily circulation of over 7.5 million copies, with perhaps twice that many people actually reading them. The Sunday Times has an average weekly circulation of 1,383,683, being the best-selling Sunday broadsheet, and The Times a daily circulation of 717,657, being the second best-selling daily broadsheet. Altogether, News International distributes over 50 million newspapers a week in Britain.
The Telegraph Group
Another major newspaper group in Britain is the Telegraph Group Limited, which was recently sold by Hollinger International Inc. to a company owned by the Catholic Barclay brothers, more famous for the bank of the same name. The Telegraph group publishes the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Weekly Telegraph, and The Spectator magazine, as well as other, lesser media interests, including The Saturday Telegraph. Although the outright owners of these papers are therefore not Jewish, the editorial stance remains identical to the other media forms in the UK: solidly pro-Jewish.
Hollinger International, the former owners of these papers, belongs to the gentile, Conrad Black, who is married to the Jewess Barbara Amiel. Black referred to the Palestinians in his Jerusalem Post in 1993 as "vile and primitive," while Mrs. Black, likened them to "animals" in the November 7, 2000 edition of their Telegraph.
Conrad Black explained that, "If editors disagree with us they should disagree with us when they’re no longer in our employ. The buck stops with ownership. I am responsible for meeting the payroll; therefore I will ultimately determine what the papers say and how they’re going to be run."
Associated Newspapers
The flagship national circulation newspaper of Associated Newspapers is the Daily Mail, which has an average daily circulation of 2,477,416. The Managing Director of the Daily Mail is the Jew Guy Zitter.
S.Africa: “We are now in the final days of white life in this country.”
S.Africa: “We are now in the final days of white life in this country.” - UK's Times Report
Date Posted: Wednesday 05-May-2010[Too bad the British never mentioned to us it might be like this one day when they were so busy pushing for the previous Govt to hand over power to the ANC. Anyhow, let's at least be tremendously grateful that more than 25 years later... the TRUTH is finally dawning on the British. Jan]
The gunman leant forward and pushed the pistol hard into Manie Potgieter’s neck. “Listen, you white bastard,” he whispered, his breath heavy with alcohol. “I have Aids. We are now going to rape your wife and give her Aids too. Then, we kill you, got it?”
From his position on the floor, hands tied behind his back, he could hear his assailant’s three accomplices pulling the tracksuit bottoms off his wife, Helena, 28.
“I was sure they were going to shoot me, but I just prayed she would be OK. She was telling me in Afrikaans not to worry. I just prayed,” Mr Potgieter, 30, a blond giant of a man, told The Times.
Suddenly, a clang of metal echoed through the early morning air — and the attackers took fright. They had been in the remote farmhouse for an hour and dawn was fast approaching. “Let’s go, someone is coming,” one of them shouted in panic. Without firing a shot they were suddenly gone.
The Potgieters’ nightmare was over — but it was one of the very few happy endings to a spate of attacks on South Africa’s white Afrikaner farming communities in which an estimated 3,000 people have been killed since 1994.
On another farm, a few miles away, Louis Boshoff, 65, and his wife, Elsabe, 57, were not so lucky. A few months ago, Mr Boshoff arose early one morning, as he has done for almost 47 years, to milk his small dairy herd.
“Two men were hiding in one of the outdoor sheds. They had balaclavas on and came at me. One had a gun and the other a catapult with ball bearings as shot,” he said.
When one of them fired at his barking dogs, Mr Boshoff saw red and tried to rush them, but he was shot twice. He lost his spleen, most of his pancreas and half his liver. His wife rushed to be at his side, tripped and suffered a broken leg.
The subject of attacks on white farmers is deeply disliked by the ruling African National Congress for the unflattering comparisons that it brings with neighbouring Zimbabwe, but it has come to the fore since the murder of the white supremacist leader Eugène Terre’Blanche a month ago. That incident followed a sharp deterioration in race relations after Julius Malema, the outspoken leader of the ANC’s Youth League, started singing at rallies an old anti-apartheid struggle song that includes the words “shoot the boer [farmer]”.
The High Court banned the song but the ruling is now under appeal. Mr Malema faces an ANC disciplinary hearing after he defied orders and continued to sing the song while visiting Zimbabwe, where he praised President Mugabe for land reform policies, under which 4,000 white commercial farmers have been driven off the land in the past decade.
Since Terre’Blanche’s murder the farm attacks have continued unabated. Last week another two white farmers were killed in separate attacks.
“The murder of TB [Terre’Blanche] was planned. They start singing ‘kill the boer’ — then the most famous boer of the lot is murdered. I did not support him, but do not tell me it is not linked,” said Ian Bothma, 47, a tradesman from Terre’Blanche’s home town who has recently applied to emigrate to Australia. “We are now in the final days of white life in this country.”
The Government points out that blacks are also the targets of farm attacks; black unions, for their part, emphasise that, 16 years after the end of apartheid, many black farm workers are still ill treated, with their white employers accused of fuelling the violence by paying derisory wages and using illegal migrant labour.
At the root of the problem is the Government’s failure to carry out land reforms that meet black aspirations without destroying the productive agricultural sector. It wants at least one third of productive farm land to be in black hands by 2014 but is way off target. The land bank set up to finance farm purchases is broke; fleeced by its own managers, with a corruption investigation under way.
Andre Botha, chairman of Agriculture South Africa’s rural safety committee, told parliament recently that the biggest challenge facing the industry was “irresponsible remarks” by officials and politicians. “If we are excluded from being South African then there is a big question mark put on democracy,” he said.
Last week, President Zuma promised that there would be no Zimbabwean-style land grabs — but most whites are not convinced. “I was born and bred here but it is time to go,” Mr Bothma said. “It is unfair to inflict such a future on our children.”
Land in crisis
40,000 farmers in South Africa
3,000 farmers murdered since the end of apartheid
800,000 white South Africans out of a total of 4.4 million have emigrated since 1995
200,000 hectares of abandoned farmland has been leased by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to farmers fleeing South Africa
87% of agricultural land was owned by whites at the end of the apartheid era
30% of land must be in black hands by 2014, if government targets for land reform are to be met
2% of land has changed hands so far, with funds for further purchases having dried up and a corruption inquiry under way
20% of South Africans of all races want to emigrate, with 95 per cent of those naming violent crime as the single most important factor
The gunman leant forward and pushed the pistol hard into Manie Potgieter’s neck. “Listen, you white bastard,” he whispered, his breath heavy with alcohol. “I have Aids. We are now going to rape your wife and give her Aids too. Then, we kill you, got it?”
From his position on the floor, hands tied behind his back, he could hear his assailant’s three accomplices pulling the tracksuit bottoms off his wife, Helena, 28.
“I was sure they were going to shoot me, but I just prayed she would be OK. She was telling me in Afrikaans not to worry. I just prayed,” Mr Potgieter, 30, a blond giant of a man, told The Times.
Suddenly, a clang of metal echoed through the early morning air — and the attackers took fright. They had been in the remote farmhouse for an hour and dawn was fast approaching. “Let’s go, someone is coming,” one of them shouted in panic. Without firing a shot they were suddenly gone.
The Potgieters’ nightmare was over — but it was one of the very few happy endings to a spate of attacks on South Africa’s white Afrikaner farming communities in which an estimated 3,000 people have been killed since 1994.
On another farm, a few miles away, Louis Boshoff, 65, and his wife, Elsabe, 57, were not so lucky. A few months ago, Mr Boshoff arose early one morning, as he has done for almost 47 years, to milk his small dairy herd.
“Two men were hiding in one of the outdoor sheds. They had balaclavas on and came at me. One had a gun and the other a catapult with ball bearings as shot,” he said.
When one of them fired at his barking dogs, Mr Boshoff saw red and tried to rush them, but he was shot twice. He lost his spleen, most of his pancreas and half his liver. His wife rushed to be at his side, tripped and suffered a broken leg.
The subject of attacks on white farmers is deeply disliked by the ruling African National Congress for the unflattering comparisons that it brings with neighbouring Zimbabwe, but it has come to the fore since the murder of the white supremacist leader Eugène Terre’Blanche a month ago. That incident followed a sharp deterioration in race relations after Julius Malema, the outspoken leader of the ANC’s Youth League, started singing at rallies an old anti-apartheid struggle song that includes the words “shoot the boer [farmer]”.
The High Court banned the song but the ruling is now under appeal. Mr Malema faces an ANC disciplinary hearing after he defied orders and continued to sing the song while visiting Zimbabwe, where he praised President Mugabe for land reform policies, under which 4,000 white commercial farmers have been driven off the land in the past decade.
Since Terre’Blanche’s murder the farm attacks have continued unabated. Last week another two white farmers were killed in separate attacks.
“The murder of TB [Terre’Blanche] was planned. They start singing ‘kill the boer’ — then the most famous boer of the lot is murdered. I did not support him, but do not tell me it is not linked,” said Ian Bothma, 47, a tradesman from Terre’Blanche’s home town who has recently applied to emigrate to Australia. “We are now in the final days of white life in this country.”
The Government points out that blacks are also the targets of farm attacks; black unions, for their part, emphasise that, 16 years after the end of apartheid, many black farm workers are still ill treated, with their white employers accused of fuelling the violence by paying derisory wages and using illegal migrant labour.
At the root of the problem is the Government’s failure to carry out land reforms that meet black aspirations without destroying the productive agricultural sector. It wants at least one third of productive farm land to be in black hands by 2014 but is way off target. The land bank set up to finance farm purchases is broke; fleeced by its own managers, with a corruption investigation under way.
Andre Botha, chairman of Agriculture South Africa’s rural safety committee, told parliament recently that the biggest challenge facing the industry was “irresponsible remarks” by officials and politicians. “If we are excluded from being South African then there is a big question mark put on democracy,” he said.
Last week, President Zuma promised that there would be no Zimbabwean-style land grabs — but most whites are not convinced. “I was born and bred here but it is time to go,” Mr Bothma said. “It is unfair to inflict such a future on our children.”
Land in crisis
40,000 farmers in South Africa
3,000 farmers murdered since the end of apartheid
800,000 white South Africans out of a total of 4.4 million have emigrated since 1995
200,000 hectares of abandoned farmland has been leased by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Congo to farmers fleeing South Africa
87% of agricultural land was owned by whites at the end of the apartheid era
30% of land must be in black hands by 2014, if government targets for land reform are to be met
2% of land has changed hands so far, with funds for further purchases having dried up and a corruption inquiry under way
20% of South Africans of all races want to emigrate, with 95 per cent of those naming violent crime as the single most important factor
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