I really ought to go over to the dark side:
Many of [Andrés] Sepúlveda’s efforts were unsuccessful, but he has enough wins that he might be able to claim as much influence over the political direction of modern Latin America as anyone in the 21st century. “My job was to do actions of dirty war and psychological operations, black propaganda, rumors—the whole dark side of politics that nobody knows exists but everyone can see,” he says in Spanish, while sitting at a small plastic table in an outdoor courtyard deep within the heavily fortified offices of Colombia’s attorney general’s office. He’s serving 10 years in prison for charges including use of malicious software, conspiracy to commit crime, violation of personal data, and espionage, related to hacking during Colombia’s 2014 presidential election. He has agreed to tell his full story for the first time, hoping to convince the public that he’s rehabilitated—and gather support for a reduced sentence.
Usually, he says, he was on the payroll of Juan José Rendón, a Miami-based political consultant who’s been called the Karl Rove of Latin America.
Analysis doesn’t pay, but ratfucking does.
Something David Brock and others are well aware of.
Should give you an idea of how much we value the one over the other.
Incidentally, while we’re blaming various institutions and strategies for the rise of Trump perhaps the stubborn and wilful ignorance of sizable cohorts of the electorate rates an honourable mention.
People aren’t naturally stubborn and willfully ignorant, but they are responsive and vulnerable to propaganda and snake oil salesmen. And once sold, it’s difficult for them to become unsold, particularly as they age and voices of flexibility and knowledge are too rare for them to see/hear them.
So lets start with the prosperity denominations of Christianity… Whose idea was that?
John Knox.
You know exactly what I mean.
Not sure I do.
Prosperity gospel has been part of the US culture since before the US existed. How overt the gospel is waxes and wanes during different periods and shifts from one religious sect to another. But it does always seem to be more pronounced in conservative religious communities and usually when those communities have achieved on an aggregate basis more wealth.
JJ Rendon seems like a classic example of Nietzsche’s aphorism from Beyond Good and Evil.
Once again proud of what my country chooses to export to the world.