Saturday, November 8, 2008

The Mafia thriller aspects of Belgian Poly-tics and Media

from the Belgian P-Magazine 21/10/08
This resembles everything of a Mafia Thriller.
What the press kept quiet about the book of Jürgen Verstrepen.
Introduction for clarity: Jürgen Verstrepen was a thriving talkshow host, first on the radio and later on tv too, who joined the extreme right wing political party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) after his show was cancelled, because he thought it was the only party not conniving with the others that stood a chance of changing stuff. He quickly realized it wasn't, and the party was much more racist than first let on.
So he switched to the List Dedecker, which is a new political party by Jean-Marie Dedecker who is at least a vocal critic of the restriction of personal freedoms.
The article: Sex and scandals at Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest): Marie-Rose Morel and Frank Vanhecke were getting it on (2 right-wing politicians). That was the dirty story that the newspapers published from the book of Jürgen Verstrepen. The other 204 pages of the 208 page publication were remarkably ignored. Frank Thevissen, professor of communication knows why.

Frank Thevissen: The first 120 pages of that book are really remarkable. They illustrate an image of the way a bunch of Flemish politicians have slowly destroyed the media career of Verstrepen and silenced him. In the book Patrick Dewael, Bart Somers, Karel De Gucht, Noël Slangen(=Snakes) [all previous names are VLD Liberals], Steve Stevaert and Guy Peeters [both SP.A Socialists - and the latter Chairman of the board at the national channel VRT] are named.
Each time the same names show up that use their power to manipulate items in the media the way they want it. Beware if you cross these people. Verstrepen's story shows again that at the highest level there is a serious conflict of interest between politics and media. (VRT-pawn and main political "journalist" Siegfried Bracke is also a known freemason, editor's note!).
For every journalist this book should be the catalyst to expose those malpractices. But what do you see? That all newspapers only ofcus on the affaire of Morel and 98% of the book is kept quiet as death about. That contains everything of a Mafia Thriller doesn't it?

What are you insinuating?
Thevissen: That the press used that affaire as a decoy to cover up the other relevant contents of the book. Journalists seem to have such a holy fear of that network behind the screens that they censor themselves. That way they don't get into trouble.

Does Verstrepen have evidence of that boycot?
The Masonic Fraternity does not leave any traces. Those men don't show off their accomplishments. But that telephone call with Noël Slangen(Snakes) definitely took place. And why do you think an infamous Liberal VLDer wants to protect Steve Stevaert of the Socialist SP.A? [see later.] Because they're in the same fraternity, of course!
To me these workings of a small group of influential politicians in this country are a lot more frightening than the accusing paragraphs about Vlaams Belang. I thus fear that Verstrepen sent the wrong message into the world. [I think he means inadvertently, and btw, the only thing I ever heard about the book was indeed the Vlaams Belang "controversy"...]

Why are you sticking up for Verstrepen? Won't you be put into an extreme right-wing corner?

Thevissen: Verstrepen can take care of himself. I'm doing this out of pure indignation. Who knows me, knows that I'm not left, not right, but just rebellious. I like to tackle sacred cows.
Book Fragment: Before the 2007 election Noël Slangen tries to recruit Jürgen Verstrepen for the liberals.
Slangen: The attention you have received by the cancellation of your show is perfect for us. We can build a nice campaign around your theme: freedom of expression. But there is one issue that bothers us. You accused Steve Stevaert.
Verstrepen: Yes, so what? What's the problem?
Slangen: You have insinuated that Steve is co-responsible for the cancellation of your program.
Verstrepen: But Steve suggested that himself in the presence of Goedele Liekens (media-whore who in one of the first issues of her new magazine pushed for Micro-Chipping all children for fuck's sake), Paul Van den Driessche (Christian Democrat Politician) and his representative. I can drop dead now if it ain't so.
Slangen: Yes, but if you join us, it would be useful if you call that journalist and say you've made a mistake. Tell him Steve has nothing to do with it, because as you know, Stevaert is popular...
Also from Frank Thevissen at BehindTheNews webmagazine:
"The Media-attention for the book "Black on White" (Expression in flemish meaning something like "Unmistakable") of Jurgen Verstrepen proves exactly what the author is coming up against: a crawling press that shuts itself up and tries to completely ignore others. Of the 208 pages, only 4 were discussed. They weren't even relevant. What really should incite fear, apparently did."
Jürgen Verstrepen about the P-Magazine article:
The title of the piece is "This resembles everything of a Mafia Thriller." I can only confirm. I keep repeating, the book's subtitle is "Behind the scenes of Media and Politics" and that is of course never mentioned. 4 pages get smeared out, 204 are buried. Flanders at its best...
General quote from Jürgen Verstrepen:
"We indeed live in a perception society where Politics and Press play Judge and that isn't healthy for democracy."
Unrelated on the same page of the P-magazine article:
"You can't get rich on the stock market."
Financial Journalist Paul D'Hoore is very honest

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