By Geraldina Colotti, Resumen Latinoamericano, August 21, 2024
© NATO Innovation Hub
If we wanted to summarize the mechanisms of “cognitive warfare”, which aims to condition the brain through the manipulation of emotions, we could speak of the “three C’s”: Convince, Confuse, Coopt, consolidate fake news in the common perception. From the “witch hunts” against rebellious women in past centuries, to the construction of the “internal enemy” and the obsession against communism in the various modulations produced by the last century, imperialism has refined its propagandistic techniques, relying on the cult of the ephemeral and the “end of history”, multiplied by social networks in the current century.
Once the economic (the capitalist market-god), political (the insuperability of the class-divided society and the absence of alternatives), “philosophical” (the imposition of some metaphysics to hide the reality of the clash of interests, such as the identification between communism and dictatorship; or the category of “terrorism”, with which to stigmatize also the right of peoples to rebel), it is easy to confuse good and bad by inverting symbols, spreading deceptions and conspiracy theories that defy common sense and reason.
In the countries of old Europe, the “three C’s” strategy is very successful. This was seen during the wars of the third millennium, from the Balkans to Rwanda, from Syria to Libya. We have seen this and we can see it with Bolivarian Venezuela, a true laboratory of traps and deception, in which even those who would have an interest in defending their values end up being victims of propaganda, feeding the farce orchestrated by the war media.
The first piece of deception consists of sowing doubts by associating names, concepts and data related to the “enemy” (in this case the hated Maduro and his government comrade) with a negative connotation. And so, although put to the test by 32 electoral processes, Bolivarian socialism will never be a democracy, but always an “authoritarian regime” or a “dictatorship”. When it wins, it is called fraud, as in the case of July 28. And its institutions must be under imperialist tutelage.
Controls are “demanded” that we would never think of asking of other countries, even when the one shouting fraud is a tycoon of Trump’s stature, who will then feel “authorized” to inspire the assault on the Capitol. Demolishing the credibility of Venezuelan popular democracy was the first step to make asymmetric attacks and violations in the name of the “axis of good” acceptable; and then denying, based on the same dynamics, the existence of these attacks. This happened after the assassination attempts on President Maduro, the mercenary invasion and coup attempts, and now in the case of cyber-attacks, although claimed by the gurus of social networks, or by the hacker group Anonymus Venezuela.
In the image society, in which disinformation also passes through spectacle and entertainment, it is important to prevent the so-called international public opinion from associating with socialist leaders the concept of beauty, of culture, of a role model, being the dominant aesthetics a prerogative of the “axis of good”.
And so, while the shady characters, products of the oligarchy, are photographed in the best light, the Chavista men and women will always appear as vociferous and coarse brutes with a fierce smile, who lie to stay in power. That they have experience, culture and a high international profile is an unbearable reality for the bourgeoisie, they have to hide it, being these prerogatives of the “axis of good”: even when, as it happens in Italy, they flaunt rulers with the brains of a hen and the culture of a chicken (with due respect to poultry).
And when the Venezuelan Minister of Science and Technology, Gabriela Jimenez, biologist and politician of solid culture, denounces the multiplicity of cyber-attacks suffered by more than 126 institutional sites, the proofs she adduces do not count. The frauds of the coup plotters count, endorsed – like the farce of the “self-proclaimed” babble – by the “undisputed” European democracies (those in which the citizens vote, but do not decide, because the purse strings are pulled by the EU decision-makers).
And so, at the initiative of Italy and France, the President of the French Republic, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, the President of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland, the Prime Minister of the Portuguese Republic and the President of the Government of Spain have adopted a joint declaration to dictate the rules of democracy to Venezuela… according to the coup model.
The second piece of the deception involves the attack on the strengths that have allowed Bolivarian socialism to grow and resist for 25 years: the popular mobilization and the civil-military union, which follows the model of the people’s army built by Ho Chi Minh and not that of Pinochet. Therefore, while the representatives of the coup oligarchy do not respond to the interests of the people, but to those of their Western godfathers, Bolivarian socialism and the social bloc that sustains it must be shown as “a group of power” that has lost support and consensus, for which reason it falsified the vote. Also contributing to the confusion are those doctrinaires who on paper support the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, but at the ballot box give their vote to a former coup leader, and accuse Maduro of being… “anti-democratic” and too moderate.
And, meanwhile, the international media, just as they prepared the ground for the coup and its denunciations of fraud, presenting the few attendants to the opposition rallies as crowds, now qualify as “gigantic” the demonstrations that took place in European cities, launched by the Venezuelan right wing and by the parties that support it in the EU countries (including the center-left – neo-liberal – Italian).
In an orgy of distorted symbols and modest rallies presented as “oceanic” demonstrations, banners reflecting statements coming from Colombia or Brazil are framed, but silence is kept on other positions adopted, such as that of Mexico, less blackmailed by the weight of the EU.
That the right wing is strong today in Venezuela is demonstrated by the amount of votes received by Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia (almost four and a half million), finishing second. However, another issue is to take for granted the hegemony of the extreme right in the Bolivarian country.
That the right wing is strong in Europe is unfortunately a harsh reality for the popular sectors, but to believe the media story, according to which the overthrow of Maduro would be at the forefront of the concerns of European citizens, is a big lie.
But how to escape the deception if not even using Wikipedia (funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, a US “non-profit” foundation) the official results of July 28 are not published? If you try to type in “Venezuelan presidential elections of 2024”, you will start reading the following: “Presidential elections in Venezuela were held on Sunday, July 28, 2024, in order to elect the president for a six-year constitutional term. The controversial elections, which were neither free nor fair, took place in a context in which the Maduro government controls all branches of government and represses the political opposition. Venezuela’s government is widely regarded as an authoritarian regime.”
Convince, Confuse, Coopt, consolidating fake news in the common perception. The idea has to be given that there is a broad consensus on the position of the “axis of good”, bipartisan on the European side. That more than half the world has expressed another opinion, giving anti-imperialist solidarity to Bolivarian democracy, is of little importance to the followers of European neocolonialism.
“We will wage war by deception” is the motto of the Mossad, the Israeli secret service on which the Zionist entity has based its power and impunity, with the complicity of the West. But just as the Palestinian resistance has torn the veil of lies with its struggle, awakening youthful consciences around the world, the numerous flags that have waved in the squares of Rome, Berlin, Madrid, Paris and other European countries in solidarity with the Bolivarian revolution may bring another wind in favor of socialism.