Right-wing Unleashes Campaign Against Democracy in Latin America

[Judi Lynn]

Right-wing Unleashes Campaign Against Democracy in Latin America
Written by Chuck Kaufman
Tuesday, 31 May 2011 21:11

US Latin Americanist Cold Warriors and their far-right allies in the region kicked off a propaganda campaign in May to influence Congress and US citizens against Venezuela and fellow ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas) countries. With declining attention being paid to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, neoconservatives and neoliberals want to turn our attention to rolling back social and economic advances in Latin America.

The campaign began with a Sunday, May 22, 2011, opinion piece in the Miami Herald penned by Reagan administration chief propagandist Otto Reich and continued with a Congressional briefing that he moderated on May 26. His premise in the Miami Herald article: “Dictatorships are being established in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua by an alliance of self-avowed ‘21st-century socialist’ leaders who utilize free elections to reach power and then set about destroying the very institutions of democracy that put them there.”

He claimed that ALBA, which is a trade agreement based on cooperation rather than competition, “has not only managed to survive as a retrograde movement in a modernizing hemisphere, but is now actively exporting its subversive model to neighboring countries.”

Background on Otto Reich

Reich knows a lot about subversion. As head of the Office of Public Diplomacy in the Reagan White House, Reich used military PSYOPS techniques to mold congressional and public opinion in favor of Reagan’s illegal Contra War to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

More:
http://upsidedownworld.org/main/international-archives-60/3055-right-wing-unleashes-campaign-against-democracy-in-latin-america

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1. The aptly named Mr. Reich

[Judi Lynn]

2. Sorry, I've posted this article in another thread in Editorials. Accidentally. n/t

U.S. military using fake online profiles to spread propaganda
By Lewis Bazley
Last updated at 11:18 AM on 18th March 2011

The American military has spent $2.8million on software to create fake personas on social networking websites in a bid to curb online jihadists.

The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) has awarded a $2.76million contract to California company Ntrepid in order to create false identities – known as ‘sock puppets’ – to manipulate conversations on sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The move is reportedly intended to hamper online extremism but critics will argue the scheme actually strikes a blow against free speech.

A June 2010 contract shows the software in question would allow users to control ‘10 personas… replete with background , history, supporting details, and cyber presences that are technically, culturally and geographically consistent’.

Up to 50 users of the software would be ‘able to appear to originate in nearly any part of the world’ with the intention of interacting ‘through conventional online services and social media platforms’.

More:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367535/U-S-military-using-fake-online-profiles-spread-propaganda.html