Rio: “Flash Mob by Gabeira Supporters to Protest Election Result”

THE PRO-DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT: "Adhering to our ideals of democracy, spontaneity, nonpartisanship, and pacifism, come join our struggle against electoral crimes!" Click to zoom.

The Rio mayoral elections were won by a very, very tight margin (55,000 votes, or a little over 1% of votes cast) by Eduardo Paes of the PMDB — the party of the establishment in Rio, given that the last several governors were PMDB, and Mayor Maia started out there as well before flipping to the PFL — over Fernando “I Kidnapped The American Ambassador” Gabeira, the former PT activist turned dissident and PSDB-backed oppositionist for the Green Party.

(Green parties all over the world have taken a notable turn to the right in recent years, don’t you tend to find?)

A concerted online “viral marketing” marketing campaign is reportedly underway to question the legitimacy of the result.

Outgoing Rio mayor Cesar “The Naked” Maia has already been furiously at work on his “ex-blog,” trying to undermine the credibility of the established polling institutes, IBOPE and DataFolha, which predicted a tight race, tipping toward Paes. See

• Rio’s Naked Mayor: The DataBlog Proves Polling Institutes Were in on Election-Rigging!

The item is from the Jornal de Commercio of Rio — 90% wire service copy, 10% gossip columns. The “Pro-Democracy Movement” blog is currently offline for — says the Blogger Web site — “possible violations of the terms of service.”

The campaign has many of the features associated with “astroturf” — phony “grassroots” — campaigns, such as the careful maintenance of plausible deniability when it comes to linking the spontaneous upwelling of righteous indignation and concern for universal values with any merely partisan interest! But who knows at this point?

File under “Orkut, youthful Brazilians are absolutely bonkers over …”

Simpatizantes do deputado Fernando Gabeira, candidato derrotado do PV à Prefeitura do Rio, estão usando a internet, instrumento estimulado por ele durante a campanha, para organizar um protesto, na sexta-feira, contra o resultado da eleição. Gabeira perdeu para Paes por apenas 55 mil votos, num segundo turno marcado pela campanha negativa de panfletos apócrifos e flagrantes de boca-de-urna.

Supporters of federal legislator Fernando Gabeira, the defeated Green Party mayoral candidate for Rio de Janeiro, is using the Internet, a tool used extensively during the campaign, to organize a protest Friday against the result of the election. Gabeira lost to Eduardo Paes by just 55,000 votes in a runoff election marked by negative campaigning through irregular pamphleteering and flagrant illegal campaigning activity at voting precincts.

Logo após a apuração, no domingo, amigos criaram uma página no site de relacionamentos Orkut para discutir os flagrantes de boca de urna do segundo turno, que favoreciam Paes em sua maioria. Em três dias, a comunidade já contava dez mil adeptos. Um manifesto do intitulado “Movimento Pró-Democracia” se espalhou pela internet em blogs, messengers e correntes de e-mails.

As soon as the results were tallied, on Sunday, friends created a page on Orkut to discuss illegal campaigning during the runoff voting, most of which favored Paes. In three days, the community had attracted more than 10,000 members. A manifesto titled “Pro-Democracy Movement” was spread by blogs, IMs, and e-mail chain letters.

Propaganda: Quick Note on a False Cognate

Brazil's Gradiente links to the company's "propaganda" page -- by which it means a page outlining its advertising campaigns. Click to zoom.

Propaganda: … dissemination of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person <steady erosion of Socialist propaganda about the wrongs done to the people — Roy Lewis & Angus Maude> … doctrines, ideas, arguments, facts, or allegations spread by deliberate effort through any medium of communication in order to further one’s cause or to damage an opposing cause <brushed aside the peace proposals as mere propaganda> b : a public action or display having the purpose or the effect of furthering or hindering a cause <distribution of free food parcels … is the first successful piece of propaganda that the Western Powers have thought up — New Statesman & Nation>
synonym see PUBLICITY

Propaganda is a 1999 Turkish libertarian comedy film. –Wikipedia

Can I get a witness from native speakers of the language of Shakespeare, Chuck Berry, Sid Vicious and Ronald Reagan that the term propaganda has a generally negative connotation in our beloved mother tongue?

In Brazilian Portuguese, meanwhile, for historical reasons, the term still carries the neutral connotation conferred upon it by Edward Bernays’ 1928 book on the subject — the loss of which is lamented by such modern-day propagandists as Richard “The Human Rashomon Effect” Edelman of Edelman Worldwide.

Edelman wrote, for example, in response to a Der Spiegel article painting the company in a negative light, that the article was

… basically a conflation of cinema-induced fantasy, anti-Americanism, anti-President Bush, anti-capitalism, and fear of propaganda stemming from World War II.