Thanks teevee, but I believe that there are far more sinister forces at work than the folks who are born with more pigmentation in their skin and would like to vote in spite of it.
If one wants to look for the sources of ugliness in South Africa one might just have to ask a few English gentlemen about it. And it is most regretable that there were Canadian Soldiers on her Majesty's service who were there to help out.
The good old Brits were using the Africaneers to demonstrate the concentration camp concept to the world while Hitler was just a pup.
And what was it about? Gold and diamonds and control.
The Africaneers (the ones who survived) eventually gained control of the government in South Africa with the support of key backers. There has always been some question about who was really in control. You might just think of it as the KKK being assigned the job of overseeing the plantation by some nice liberal gentlemen who lived elsewhere.
When they really wanted to learn how to control the blacks, they came to Canada to study our reservation system before they created the "homelands" and made the blacks second class or rather non-citizens. Of course this was after much of the black's herds of cows had been slaughtered. Does this have a familiar ring to it teevee?
Have you ever read Keynes' solution for smoothing out the gyrations on the stock market and creating a nice steady growth curve for capital? I do not want to put too much blame or credit on his shoulders but many governments were particularily taken with the idea of having "reserves" of labour that could be called upon when needed and that would simply disappear when not needed. It works very neatly when you have a group of uneducated,unorganized, and disenfranchized non-citizens who don't mind being used or who can be convinced that what is happening is really something else.
I don't know if you have been following some of the developments out in B.C. After WWII many Native Veterans came back from liberating Europe to find themselves locked up on their "reservation" or what was left of it. Seems the Federal Government (Indian Affairs) just sort of expropriated the best of it and gave it some white veterans. There was nothing lawful about it.
The bushmen of South Africa were shot like monkeys and some were even put in cages and transported to London as if they were apes for the zoo. Any idea what happened to the native folks in Newfoundland? They all just kinda dissappeared. How about the Aboriginies in Australia. And how did Native Americans from the eastern States find themselves in the wild west?
Would you hazard a guess as to how many young men have been slaughtered over diamonds, gold, land, cows, power and plain old ugly tribalism, prejudice, and religion?
We could talk of many things. Did you know that it was the Mohawks who turned back the American forces inclined to invade and seize Eastern Canada. What did they get for that? It was Gabriel Dumont who told the Americans where the border was in Western Canada. Did you know that Gabriel Dumont could have seized and held most of North America at one time if he was inclined?
He wasn't, but the Metis had to be pestered, sucked in and betrayed just because they were there and they could have. And why did Louis Riel have to be hung? What kind of rebellion did he create? Dumont could have taken out Middleton's troops before they got any where near Batoche.
Louis Riel was certain that he could waive some legal papers (valid I might add) at Middleton and have him go away or at least negotiate a compromise. Louis was wrong. He got law mixed up with power.
In short teevee, if you have some shares in a diamond mine (or any thing else) and you are worried about someone taking it from you, pay special attention to folks who have a history of taking diamond mines away.
Watch the stock action on SUF very carefully. Marsfontein may be far richer than most people know and who would know better than the operator. Who do you think might have been picking up bushel baskets of cheap SUF stock last spring and summer when the outcome on Marsfontein was uncertain? Why should anybody be selling endless amounts of SUF stock recently and driving the price down?
It has nothing to do with it being a S.A. asset. Marsfontein was always a S.A. asset and the S.A. stock market has been doing just fine lately.
I think that someone else wanted the JV with Canabrava in Brazil and they would be happy to have Camafuca too. If you see SUF heading for $4.00 on Monday expect a takeover offer to follow. There is one heck of a battle going on over control of Canadian Diamond miners. It is just not all that visible. Winspear will be on the shopping list as well. Don't expect a $40.00 per share offer if it can be had by other means.
There I go reading those Joseph Conrad stories again. |
