Thread in response to an unfortunate Washington Post article.
Not only do we have the fact of evidence of fraud left out if the involvement of Mark Weisbrot's @ceprdc did not set off a herd of klaxons then ..
.. folks, important folks at the Washington Post, need to read more @Clifross
caracaschronicles.com/2019/05/09/pan…
caracaschronicles.com/2019/05/09/pan…
And read more Carwil too.
If I were to hazard a guess as to why this found its way into @WashPost it would be that someone from Harvard is involved. His rather patronising concern is 'accidentally delegitimising democracies' & he dismisses 'feelings towards Morales' as irrelevant.
Thank you Jhanisse. The @washingtonpost can faff about all it likes, what's important is the vote in May and 'generating proposals from citizenship'.
"Bolivia came out of this alone, we don't need to convince others."
"Bolivia came out of this alone, we don't need to convince others."
Because, contary to what you may read in the alternative media, lefty Americans with an academic aura can get far more media attention than either lefty Bolivians who are not Evo fans or lefty Americans who know Bolivia.
More damnation of the Post in this thread. Some insight into how it got commissioned would be nice.
'Gambling? Surely not. Shocked, I tell you, to find gambling in here!'
When this first appeared I was a tad shocked to see some LatAm correspondents buying it. Serious journos. Not going to name them but it just shows how propagandists can succeed.
And this fits right in with other propaganda efforts against the OAS such as when TeleSUR decided to spend a ton of money on reporting live from the election in Dominica a few months ago.
This is why Weisbrot does what he does, produce pseudo-academic talking points from his American perch. Here's Argentina's leader claiming that a mythical 'MIT report' cleared Evo Morales of election fraud.
And here is Venezuela's Foreign Minister amping Argentina's leader amping a non-existent 'MIT study' that a American pseudo think tank managed to get space in the Washington Post for. The circle of ̶l̶i̶f̶e̶ disinfo.
Amazes me how much the folks who rail against the 'Monroe Doctrine' use American institutions like the Washington Post, Harvard and the New York Times as a crutch, a trump card, a 'ahah! got you now' tool.
I guess they know that if you can get the Washington Post to run something then others like El Pais will follow. (👇For 1 thing it was nothing to do with MIT except the study authors work there, +they did not find what the reporting is saying they did. 🤦♂️)
I somehow doubt this will ever get corrected by the Post. Which just goes to show how much bollox is spoken about the 'MSM'.
This is literally true but the lede about a 'reignited row' is about the very platform and framing these 'US researchers' have been granted from which they can make their (wrong) claims. Never mind what actually happened, tell me about the 'row'.🤦♂️ 
The actual 'row' is over whether Morales was the subject of a 'coup' or not, which is a legit debate. The only people intent on relitigating the actual election are people like Mark 'hyperinflation in Venezuela is impossible' Weisbrot. Oh, and the journos quoting him.
Cheers, Guardian, for opening a new front for the crazies to pile in and rewrite history more to their tastes.
Jim's at the end of the Graun's unfortunate piece, rather than the lede.
*Breathless, just run a marathon* 'Jeremy was right! He was right! It must be true because WASHINGTON POST!' 👇
It is 'MIT research' just because the two guys who were paid to do it work for MIT. But these professionals know that sprinkling academic claims over something amps it. This is how propaganda works.
It is possible for the @washingtonpost and @monkeycageblog to walk this back, as others have done. I have my doubts that they will.
Meanwhile Bolivians are getting on with it and we're an annoying noise in the background coming from the north. Here they are organising to get the laws repealed which caused the disastrous fires last year.
Pro-tip: If you want to communicate to folks in the Global North it helps to do it in English. I don't make the rules.
