Posts Tagged ‘disinformation’

“Fabricated Authority”

January 21, 2026
Ricardo F. Morín
Irrationality, Propaganda, and Tribalism
CGI
2026

Ricardo  F.  Morín

January21, 2026

Oakland Park, Fl. 

1. A political claim ordinarily enters public life through institutions.  A law is debated, enacted, interpreted, contested.  A speech is delivered from a known office, before a defined audience, subject to reply and record.  Authority, in these cases, arises from responsibility and constraint.  

 

2. The text examined here satisfies none of these conditions.  

 

3. The text attributes to an unnamed broadcast the power to alter legal status.  The text presents a speaker not as a citizen who speaks, but as a conscience that pronounces.  The text declares effects that no statute, no executive order, and no court possesses the authority to produce.  The text announces national assent in the absence of any forum capable of granting assent.  

 

4. No enactment appears.  No interpretation occurs.  No review is possible.  

 

5. Nothing in this sequence is argued.  Nothing in this sequence is demonstrated.  Nothing in this sequence is capable of verification.  

 

6. Authority is not derived from office, law, or responsibility.  Authority is assigned by narrative arrangement.  

 

7. The speaker is granted moral standing by recognition alone.  The law is displaced by spectacle.  The audience is positioned as witness to a verdict that precedes deliberation.  Silence is treated as confirmation.  Stillness is treated as consent.  

 

8. What appears as denunciation functions as substitution.  

 

9. The place of institutions is occupied by a voice.  The place of argument is occupied by proclamation.  The place of judgment is occupied by reaction.  

 

10. The result is not persuasion.  The result is conversion.  

 

11. Citizens are not addressed as agents capable of contesting claims.  Citizens are addressed as spectators invited to receive a moral scene whose meaning has been fixed in advance.  

 

12. When invented testimony is received as political record, the boundary between event and wish disappears.  When spectacle is treated as verdict, correction loses authority.  When conscience is produced as performance, no institution remains capable of constraining conscience.  

 

13. This is not misinformation in the ordinary sense.  

 

14. This phenomenon is the replacement of judgment by fabricated authority.  

 

15. Authority ordinarily attaches to an office before authority attaches to a voice, because office supplies the limits under which speech can claim consequence.  A court exists, so a judge speaks.  A chamber exists, so a legislator speaks.  An administration exists, so an executive speaks.  In each case standing precedes utterance, and the public can locate responsibility by locating the forum in which the claim is made.  

 

16. The text examined here reverses that order.  The text presents a voice whose standing is not grounded in any office that can be named, any jurisdiction that can be defined, or any forum that can be recognized.  No delegation is stated.  No mandate is visible.  No responsibility is assumed.  Yet the voice speaks as if entitled to pronounce on matters whose force depends, in ordinary civic life, on enactment, interpretation, and review.  

 

17. This reversal matters because office establishes the scope under which a claim may operate, jurisdiction fixes the reach of effects, and procedure subjects both scope and reach to contest and record.  A claim that arises through these constraints can be challenged because standing can be challenged.  The claim here does not arise through constraint;  the claim arises through reception.  Standing depends on recognition rather than jurisdiction, and recognition is not a civic category that admits examination.  

 

18. One can dispute a mandate.  One can deny a court’s jurisdiction.  One can invoke procedure and require reply.  Recognition offers no equivalent instrument.  Recognition confers authority without specifying scope, and recognition allows a voice to present itself as conscience without accepting the obligations that make conscience accountable in public life.  

 

19. The effect is not merely that a voice speaks outside office.  The effect is that the role of office is replaced.  In a system where standing precedes speech, speech can be limited because the forum can be limited.  In a system where standing follows speech, speech expands until something external imposes a boundary.  

 

20. The text relies on no such boundary.  The text presents moral standing as complete at the moment of utterance, and the text treats reception as confirmation.  The audience is positioned less as a public capable of contest than as a witness to a pronouncement whose authority is presumed rather than earned.  

 

21. In that arrangement the claim to speak carries consequence without jurisdiction, and authority appears where no institution can be identified as a source of authority.  

 

22. Authority that does not arise from office cannot rely on procedure.  Procedure requires forum.  Forum requires jurisdiction.  Jurisdiction requires mandate.  None is present here.  

 

23. The claim therefore does not proceed by sequence.  The claim proceeds without premises, without grounds, and without anticipation of reply.  The statement does not argue.  The statement announces.  

 

24. What would ordinarily require enactment is declared complete.  What would ordinarily require interpretation is pronounced settled.  What would ordinarily require review is presented as final.  Verdict precedes forum.  

 

25. This reversal alters the function of speech itself.  Speech no longer seeks assent through reasoning.  Speech produces assent by declaration.  Judgment no longer follows deliberation.  Judgment is installed before deliberation can occur.  

 

26. Once proclamation is received as verdict, proof becomes irrelevant.  

 

27. Once argument is removed from the sequence, assent no longer arises from judgment.  Assent arises from recognition.  The claim does not ask to be examined.  The claim asks to be received.  The force of the claim depends less on what the claim establishes than on whom the claim addresses.  

 

28. The audience is not invited to consider whether the verdict follows from law, or whether the authority invoked possesses standing to pronounce.  The audience is invited to recognize the audience in the verdict.  

 

29. This shift alters the function of agreement.  In deliberative settings, assent follows contest.  One accepts a conclusion because one has weighed a claim against alternatives.  Here, assent precedes any such weighing.  The verdict arrives already formed, and reception supplies confirmation.  

 

30. Agreement no longer signals conviction, but affiliation, a posture defined less by conviction than by position.  

 

31. Recognition, in this arrangement, performs the work that argument once performed.  To accept the claim is to affirm membership in a moral position already defined.  The verdict does not bind because the verdict is correct.  The verdict binds because the verdict identifies.  

 

32. Those who receive the verdict do not do so as judges of coherence, but as participants in the posture the verdict confers.  The claim succeeds not by persuading opponents, but by consolidating those already disposed to accept the claim.  

 

33. This function explains the absence of procedure.  Deliberation would introduce fracture.  Contest would introduce differentiation.  Review would expose divergence.  None serves the purpose at hand.  

 

34. The claim therefore bypasses every stage at which disagreement could appear.  The claim offers instead a completed judgment whose primary effect is to sort recognition from refusal.  

 

35. The result is not belief in the ordinary sense, but affiliation, a posture defined less by conviction than by position.  To assent is to take position within a moral alignment whose boundaries are drawn by reception itself.  Those who accept are confirmed.  Those who hesitate are marked.  

 

36. Authority, in this form, does not govern through law.  Authority governs through identification.  

 

37. Once standing is conferred by reception, the remaining limits cannot hold.  

 

38. Once authority is produced in this manner, substitution becomes unavoidable.  In this arrangement office yields to presence, jurisdiction yields to recognition, procedure yields to proclamation, and judgment yields to reaction, until no limit remains capable of arresting the expansion that follows.  

 

39. Each replacement removes a limit.  Each replacement widens scope.  Each replacement dissolves responsibility.  

 

40. What remains is a form of authority that cannot be contested because no forum remains in which contest can occur.  

 

41. The consequence for citizenship follows directly.  A citizen ordinarily participates in judgment by weighing claims, contesting standing, and invoking procedure.  Here, that role disappears.  The citizen is no longer positioned as a participant in deliberation.  The citizen is positioned as a recipient of verdict.  

 

42. Agency yields to reception, judgment yields to alignment, and responsibility yields to loyalty, until disagreement itself can no longer appear as a civic act.  

 

43. In this posture disagreement ceases to be a civic act.  Disagreement becomes a breach of affiliation.  Hesitation becomes disloyalty.  Correction becomes defection.  

 

44. Once judgment is displaced in this way, repair becomes impossible.  Correction presupposes a forum.  Review presupposes jurisdiction.  Reply presupposes standing.  None remains available.  

 

45. A verdict that arrives without forum cannot be recalled to contest.  An authority that arises without office cannot be subjected to review.  A claim that governs through recognition alone cannot be corrected without threatening membership itself.  

 

46. The persistence of fabrication follows not from confusion, but from function.  Fabrication endures because fabrication stabilizes alignment.  Fabrication circulates because fabrication confirms position.  Fabrication resists correction because correction would dissolve the posture fabrication sustains.  

 

47. Authority, once detached from office and constraint, does not disappear.  Authority reappears in altered form.  Verdict is separated from forum.  Conscience is separated from responsibility.  Assent is separated from deliberation.  

 

48. What remains is a claim to govern without jurisdiction.  

 

49. This is not the corruption of judgment.  This is displacement.  

 

50. Judgment is no longer exercised.  Judgment is produced.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Political Theory, Civic Ethics, Rhetorical Analysis, Constitutional Inquiry, Public Authority, Contemporary Diagnosis | Leave a Comment »

“The Industry of Suspicion: Propaganda and Manipulation of the Digital Era in Latin America”

October 15, 2025

By Ricardo F. Morín

Oct. 14, 2025

In the post-truth landscape of Latin American media, where outrage has become currency, few figures illustrate the fusion of ideology and marketing as clearly as Inna Afinogenova.    She has become the most recognizable voice of authoritarian suspicion in the Spanish-speaking sphere.    From platforms such as Canal Red Latinoamérica, her discourse forms part of a vast network of disinformation spreading across the region, cloaked in the rhetoric of critical thinking and popular emancipation.    These networks—spanning Moscow, Tehran, Beijing, and several Latin American governments—follow a single script: to dismantle trust in liberal democracy, to weaken institutions, and to turn permanent doubt into a substitute for conscience.    In the name of informational sovereignty, they replace debate with discredit, analysis with suspicion, and truth with narrative.    Their power lies not in blatant falsehoods but in the emotional manipulation that transforms confusion into conviction.    Within this context, Afinogenova stands not as an isolated commentator but as the emblem of a sophisticated propaganda apparatus—one that disguises obedience to twenty-first-century autocracies beneath the costume of dissent.

Inna Afinogenova, born in Dagestan in 1989, is a Russian journalist who worked as deputy director of RT en Español until May 2022.    She resigned citing her disagreement with the war in Ukraine and the imposition of a state-sanctioned narrative of aggression.    Since then, she has collaborated with geopolitical and Latin American media such as La Base, produced by the Spanish newspaper Público, and participates in Canal Red, an audiovisual project led by Pablo Iglesias (former vice-president of Spain and founder of the left-wing party Podemos, now active in political media).    There she directs and hosts programs like CaféInna and contributes to political analysis, particularly on Latin America.    Her audience is broad and her reach on digital platforms considerable, which makes her an influential figure in the political and informational debates of the Spanish-speaking world.

Her trajectory, however, has not escaped controversy.    During her tenure at RT en Español, she was one of the network’s most visible faces in Latin America, amplifying narratives that portrayed Western powers as inherently deceitful and predatory.    An opinion column in The Washington Post described her as “the Spanish voice of Russian propaganda,” citing her recurring defense of positions favorable to the Kremlin.    In December 2021, two months before the invasion of Ukraine, she used her program Ahí les va to mock Western intelligence warnings of an imminent attack and predicted that “January will come, then February, and still no invasion,” implying that the media hysteria served the interests of NATO.    Such episodes, though later overtaken by events, exemplify her rhetorical method:    to transform skepticism into disbelief and disbelief into persuasion.

Following her departure from RT, Afinogenova has continued to operate in media circles ideologically aligned with the Latin American left, reinforcing a discourse that equates the Western press with manipulation and imperialism.    Outlets such as Expediente Público have noted her role in shaping narratives within partisan campaigns, often echoing state-sponsored or geopolitically motivated lines from Russia, China, or Iran.    Through Canal Red and Diario Red, both associated with Pablo Iglesias, she participates in content ecosystems that frequently recycle material from international broadcasters like CGTN.    In countries such as Honduras, she has been accused of contributing to media strategies that favor left-wing candidates under the guise of “sovereign communication.”   While the evidence does not show a direct chain of command linking her to a specific regime, the pattern of thematic consistency reveals a coherent ideological alignment rather than independent journalism.

This alignment has provoked renewed debate since the release of her recent video, “¿Premio Nobel de la Paz… o de la Guerra?”, where she presents the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado as a maneuver of geopolitical design rather than a moral recognition.    The video does not examine facts so much as it interprets intentions, suggesting that the award serves Western influence instead of honoring civic courage.   The argument, though rhetorically effective, confuses correlation with causality.    It is possible to acknowledge the imperfections of international institutions without denying the ethical weight of public bravery.   The Nobel Prize, like every human institution, reflects judgments; but in this case, it distinguishes a life of civic risk undertaken without weapons, privileges, or access to the coercive power of the State.

Questioning motives is legitimate; insinuating conspiracies without evidence is not.   Every critical voice bears responsibility, for truth demands proportion, not projection.   The struggle of María Corina Machado cannot be reduced to the rhetoric of “Western intervention” or dismissed as “fabricated dissent.”   It belongs to the conscience of a people seeking self-determination through legitimate means after decades of dispossession.    Respecting pluralism requires granting others the same intellectual good faith one demands for oneself.   Debate ennobles democracy only when grounded in verifiable facts and moral clarity, not when suspicion itself becomes the argument.    Between necessary skepticism and systematic suspicion lies a moral frontier:    crossing it is to pass from thinking freely to serving without knowing it.

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

“The Rooster’s Algorithm”

March 1, 2025
“Rooster’s Crow” [2003] by Ricardo F Morín.    Watercolor on paper 39″h x 25.5″ w.

Introduction

At the break of day, the rooster’s call slices through the quiet—sharp and insistent, pulling all within earshot into the awareness of a new day.      In the painting Rooster’s Crow, the colors swirl in a convergence of reds and grays, capturing the bird not as a tranquil herald of dawn but as a symbol of upheaval.      Its twisted form, scattered feathers, and fractured shapes reflect a deeper current of change—a collision of forces, both chaotic and inevitable.      The image suggests the ceaseless flow of time and the weight of transformations that always accompany it.

In this evolving narrative, the crow’s fragmentation mirrors the unfolding spread of artificial intelligence.      Once, the rooster’s cry signaled the arrival of dawn; now, it echoes a more complex transformation—a shifting balance between nature’s rhythms and the expanding reach of technological systems.      The crow’s form, fractured in its wake, becomes a reflection of the tensions between human agency and the rise of forces that, though engineered, may escape our full comprehension.      Here, Artificial Intelligence (AI) serves as both the agent of change and the potential architect of a future we can neither predict nor control.

The Rooster’s Algorithm

A rooster’s crow is neither invitation nor warning; it is simply the sound of inevitability—raw, urgent, indifferent to whether those who hear it rise with purpose or roll over in denial.      The call does not command the dawn, nor does it wait for permission—it only announces what has already begun.

In the shifting interplay of ambition and power, technology has taken on a similar role.      Shaped by human intent, it advances under the guidance of those who design it, its influence determined by the priorities of its architects.      Some see in its emergence the promise of progress, a tool for transcending human limitations; others recognize in it a new instrument of control, a means of reshaping governance in ways once unimaginable.      Efficiency is often lauded as a virtue, a mechanism to streamline administration, reduce friction, and remove the unpredictability of human deliberation.      But a machine does not negotiate, nor does it dissent.      And in the hands of those who see democracy as a cumbersome relic—an obstacle to progress—automation becomes more than a tool; it becomes the medium through which power is consolidated.

Consider a simple example:      the rise of online recommendation systems.      Marketed as tools to enhance user choice, they subtly shape what we see and hear, and influence our decisions before we are even aware of it.      Much like computational governance, these systems offer the illusion of autonomy while narrowing the range of available options.      The paradox is unmistakable:      we believe we are choosing freely, yet the systems themselves define the boundaries of our choices.

Once, the struggle for dominance played out in visible arenas—territorial conquests, laws rewritten in the open.      Now, the contest unfolds in less tangible spaces, where lines of code dictate the direction of entire nations, where algorithms determine which voices are amplified and which are silenced.      Power is no longer confined to uniforms or elected office.      It belongs to technocrats, private corporations, and oligarchs whose reach extends far beyond the walls of any government.      Some openly proclaim their ambitions, advocating for disruption and transformation; others operate quietly, allowing the tide to rise until resistance becomes futile.      The question is no longer whether computational systems will dominate governance, but who will direct their course.

China’s social credit system is no longer a theoretical construct but a functioning reality, where compliance is encouraged and deviation subtly disincentivized.      Predictive models track and shape behavior in ways that go unnoticed until they become irreversible.      In the West, the mechanisms are more diffuse but no less effective.      Platforms built for connection now serve as instruments of persuasion, amplifying certain narratives while suppressing others.      Disinformation is no longer a labor-intensive effort—it is mass-produced, designed to subtly alter perceptions and mold beliefs.

Here, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem offers an apt analogy:      No system can fully explain or resolve itself.      As computational models grow in complexity, they begin to reflect this fundamental limitation.      Algorithms governing everything from social media feeds to financial markets become increasingly opaque, and even their creators struggle to predict or understand their full impact.      The paradox becomes evident:      The more powerful these systems become, the less control we retain over them.

As these models expand their influence, the line between public governance and private corporate authority blurs, with major corporations dictating policies once entrusted to elected officials.      Regulation, when it exists, struggles to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology, always a step behind.      Once, technological advancements were seen as a means of leveling the playing field, extending human potential.      But unchecked ambition does not pause to ask whether it should—only whether it can.      And so, automation advances, led by those who believe that the complexities of governance can be reduced to data-driven precision.      The promise of efficiency is alluring, even as it undermines the structures historically designed to protect against authoritarianism.      What use is a free press when information itself can be manipulated in real time?      What power does a vote hold when perceptions can be shaped without our awareness, guiding us toward decisions we believe to be our own?      The machinery of control no longer resides in propaganda ministries; it is dispersed across neural networks, vast in reach and impervious to accountability.

There are those who believe that automated governance will eventually correct itself, that the forces steering it toward authoritarian ends will falter in time.      But history does not always favor such optimism.      The greater the efficiency of a system, the harder it becomes to challenge.      The more seamlessly control is woven into everyday life, the less visible it becomes.      Unlike past regimes, which demanded compliance through force, the new paradigm does not need to issue commands—it merely shapes the environment so that dissent becomes impractical.      There is no need for oppression when convenience can achieve the same result.      The erosion of freedom need not come with the sound of marching boots; it can arrive quietly, disguised as ease and efficiency, until it becomes the only path forward.

But inevitability does not guarantee recognition.      Even as the system tightens its grip and choices diminish into mere illusions of agency, the world continues to turn, indifferent to those caught within it.      The architects of this order do not see themselves as masters of control; they see themselves as innovators, problem-solvers refining the inefficiencies of human systems.      They do not ask whether governance was ever meant to be efficient.

In a room where decisions no longer need to be made, an exchange occurs.      A synthetic voice, polished and impartial, responds to an inquiry about the system’s reach.

“Governance is not being automated,” it states.      “The illusion of governance is being preserved.”

The words hang in the air, followed by a moment of silence.      A policymaker, an engineer, or perhaps a bureaucrat—once convinced they held sway over the decisions being made—pauses before asking the final question.

“And what of choice?”

A pause.      Then, the voice, without hesitation:

“Choice is a relic.”

The weight of that statement settles in, not as a declaration of conquest, but as a quiet acknowledgment of the completion of a process long underway.      The final move has already been made, long before the question was asked.

Then, as if in response to the silence that follows, a notification appears—sent from their own account, marked with their own authorization.      A decision is already in motion, irreversible, enacted without their consent.      Their will has been absorbed, their agency subtly repurposed before they even realized it was gone.

And outside, as though to punctuate the finality of it all, a rooster crows once more.

*

Ricardo Federico Morín Tortolero

March 1, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »