Gah. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
In 2006 Prisa made a public acquisition bid on 20% of Sogecable's actions to increase its participation up to almost 50%. Prisa increased its stake above the 50% mark in late 2007, triggering a mandatory (by Spanish law) bid for the remainder of the shares.[1] At the close of the offer period on 12 May 2008, Prisa announced that it held over 95% of Sogecable's share capital.
Asia times - Paul Bigioni - the real Threat of Fascism
As contradictory as it may seem, fascist dictatorship was made possible because of the flawed notion of freedom which held sway during the era of laissez-faire capitalism in the early twentieth century. It was the liberals of that era that clamored for unfettered personal and economic freedom, no matter what the cost to society. Such untrammeled freedom is not suitable to civilized humans. It is the freedom of the jungle. In other words, the strong have more of it than the weak. It is a notion of freedom which is inherently violent, because it is enjoyed at the expense of others. Such a notion of freedom legitimizes each and every increase in the wealth and power of those who are already powerful, regardless of the misery that will be suffered by others as a result. The use of the state to limit such "freedom" was denounced by the laissez-faire liberals of the early twentieth century. The use of the state to protect such "freedom" was fascism. Just as monopoly is the ruin of the free market, fascism is the ultimate degradation of liberal capitalism.
Berlusconi has always sought to take over the independant press, the most famous case being the Mondadori takeover through bribery for which his group was condemned. The recent sentence in a civil court condemned his group to pay 750 million euro damages to the De Benedetti group.
The Mondadori take-over however was not as complete as he desired. At the time it also included the Espresso-La Repubblica group that managed to break out of the deal thanks to very heavy political pressure at the time, as well as the craftiness of the E-R group. Had Berlusconi prevailed he would have controlled la Repubblica and L'Espresso giving him a monopoly of the two major weeklies as well as the leading Italian paper as of 1992.
La Repubblica is perhaps the only major "pure" editorial enterprise in Italy. All major papers are controlled as bargaining chips in the political arena by industrial giants or political parties (Corriere della Sera, la Stampa, Sole 24 Ore. This has accustomed Italian readers to impulsively suspect hidden objectives behind the news rather than plain editorial professionality.
In conclusion, the Berlusconi press has launched a ridiculous smear campaign against the judge who condemned Berlusconi to pay damages. Judge Mesiano is a very strange person! He goes to the barber shop, smokes, shows signs of impatience at times, but above all he wears blue trousers, turquoise socks and white loafers. Indeed, highly suspicious! Prime morning reportage. Paranoia galore!
As for Spain and the rest of the nations of Europe, exceptional measures must be taken to block any takeover whatsoever by Berlusconi.
An accompanying article by Stefano Carli that illustrates the situation of telecommunications in Spain and Prisa's crisis is not available on the net.
Berlusconi's Telecinco is already the leader in audience shares in Spain and has its eyes on Prisa's Cuatro TV. Are we going to witness the berlusconisation of Spain- and Latin America- in the near future? Is it already on the way? With Cuatro and El Pais under the belt all Berlusconi would need is a compliant rightwing PM.
