Two events committed by Javier Milei’s forces have sounded the alarm. One of them was the launch of think tank of the far-right Faro Foundation, which included major businessmen who paid for the dinner in dollars. The other, the presentation of the group “The Forces of Heaven”, whose promoter called it the “armed arm” and the “praetorian guard” of the president, with behind it an iconography reminiscent of the fascists.
The rally at which Fundación Faro was presented brought together 500 people who paid $25,000 for coverage, including businessmen linked to the Argentine president. That is to say, he raised a million dollars. The Faro Foundation is an organization created by political scientist Agustín Laje, who has written several books about Milei and is one of those who support the most extremist discourse of the ruling party La Libertad Avanza. The president calls Laje a “hero of the cultural battle”.
Among the names fueling this new engine of ultraliberal ideas is Axel Kaiser Barents von Hohenhagen, a Chilean-German influencer who wrote, among other books, “The Populist Deception,” a critique of progressive governments in Latin America.
Business and politics
The organizer of the dinner was Georgie Neuss, one of the owners of the Puerto Madero Yacht Club, friend of Milei’s advisor Santiago Caputo, and linked to PRO, the party of former president Mauricio Macri. Participants included Claudio Bellocopitt, owner of the prepaid drug company Swiss Medical, and José Luis Manzano, a former minister in Carlos Menem’s government and now linked to several companies. Endeavor, the chamber of businesses worth more than a billion dollars, is an essential reference in terms of support programs and public financing.
Laje, leader of the Faro Foundation, participated in the libertarian militia event entitled “Forces of Heaven”, whose iconography had a fascist aesthetic. “Argentina, at the moment, is divided, but it is good that it is divided, because it is divided between good and evil,” shouted the representative of the think tank. The scandal arose when Daniel Parisini, known as “Gordon Dan”, head of the “Forces of Heaven” assembly, declared that the group “is the armed wing” of the milleistas.
“We are Milei’s most loyal soldiers, those who have been there from the beginning and will be there until the end to defend our leader’s country project,” said Parisini, tweeter and host of the show in streaming La Misa. He calls himself a follower of Javo – as he calls Milei – and participated in the group called El Club de los Viernes, born from the Vox experience where the ultras gave presentations and conferences related to current issues that had not been no place in the world. traditional media. In fact, the leader of Vox, Javier Ortega Smith, participated in one of the Friday Club conferences to talk about the challenges of the cultural battle.
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Valeria Di Croce, author of the book The ark of Milei, explains to eldiario.es that the far-right movement’s way of communicating is that of influencers who call for events and provoke: “The communication strategy of the hard core is similar to the linguistic codes of Trumpism and the dissemination of false news. A language of domination, of submission of the “bad” other. They copy the ideas of Steve Bannon, completely to the right and Roger Stone, also close to Trump. “We are at war,” say these representatives of the Forces of Heaven, and they take it to the land of the North. They are soldiers in the cultural battle and Laje is a kind of general. “They are provocative.”
The indignation aroused in the Argentine media by the description of the “armed arm” and the iconography of the event was probably intended. Then the “Forces of Heaven” would come and explain that it was in fact a metaphor for the power of the cell phone.
Di Croce says that in Argentina there has been a deterioration of public debate. “Laje said that the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo are murderers. It ends up becoming an ethical dilemma to broadcast such a hateful statement. From the speech “we must kill all Kirchnerists” we moved to the attempted assassination of former Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Why doesn’t the judiciary put an end to violent speech? How does the democratic system deal with these hateful slogans? » asks the author.
The truth is that from the virtual world where messages and speeches circulate, influencers have begun to occupy public space. The deputy of the Socialist Party, Esteban Paulón, requested to summon to court Daniel Parisini, Agustín Laje and other representatives of the “Forces of Heaven” for “incitement to hatred, public intimidation and incitement to violence”. Paulón explained: “The organization of a group that calls itself the armed branch or Praetorian Guard is not only contrary to social peace, but also represents a concrete threat to the rights and guarantees of citizens. »
