The Great Spin Machine

[princeofvegas 0]

I recently read an article entitled the Great Spin Machine. I would like to share that article and my thoughts with you guys and get your opinion. I know the article is a little dated, however I think it still applies today even more so.

 

The Great Spin Machine

 

Spinning has become a part of the American way of life. Not just in politics, but in every aspect of our lives. From conversation with our friends, to the news reports that we watch at night on television, spin has managed to slip into our culture almost unnoticed. However, I believe that a majority of the spin influence is in politics. The author of this article, Michael Kinsley, makes a great argument placing the blame partly on the American people by stating that ?We are obsessed with fibbing about facts because this is less elusive than the real problem, which is intellectual dishonesty,? which is one hundred percent true about the American public.

 

This article gives many great examples of how spin has infested American politics. He demonstrated an example from 2000 where the Bush campaign spun Al Gore?s words into something that they did not mean. They made it sound like he claimed to have invented the internet. After my own research (sources: Wikipedia) , I found that what he really said was ?During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the internet.? Now it is very easy that this could have been misconstrued, however people twisted the meaning of this and in a sense, put a spin onto what he had said. The author of this article has stated that spinning is not the same as lying, however there is a fine line. His definition of spinning is describing a reality to suit ones own purposes. In my opinion, these days, it is no different to tell a lie than it is to put a spin on something. With a spin, you are lying in a sense that you are avoiding the truth, which, if you ask me, is just as bad as telling a lie. With all of the spinning that goes on in politics these days, it is becoming ever harder for Americans to tell what is true. Adolph Hitler once said, ?If you tell a lie, and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.? Are our politicians feeding us so many lies and spins now days that we just believe everything and we honestly do not know when they are telling the truth or a lie?

 

I feel that we as a society are ?spinning? down the drain. I personally have not heard the terms honest and politician used in conjunction with each other as far back as I can remember. Watching television, I will see a senator or a congressman take a statement that someone has just made minutes before, and spin it into something that is in their favor. They do not even try to hide the fact that they do not want us to hear the truth. In my opinion, we as a people need to start cracking down on spinners and liars as well. When a politician tells a spin or a lie, we need to call them out and make them explain why they said what they said. It will give the politicians that are honest out there a chance to finally be heard and not drowned out in the noise of the next great spin. Thoughts anyone?

[sheepdog 10]

The older I get the more I dislike the media. Sometimes I almost feel sorry for the famous people that they cover, it seems no matter what they say or how they say it, the media twists it into meaning something totally different. I don't have much sypmathy for politicians, they get what they deserve. What I can't figure out is why on earth they think they can get away with lying in the first place. Anyone who runs for or is in public office knows good and well that in an election, their competition is going to dig up every itty bitty scrap of dirt they can find to use against them. So like that guy on the news last week that was speaking about his time in Vietnam, when in fact, he had never been there! I mean come on, how stupid is that? So they claimed he "misspoke" but crude, they had him on tape saying it 3 different times, how could he be so dumb to think nobody would catch him? I spotted a cool saying on a church sign the other day. "He who throws dirt looses ground." I thought that was a pretty good saying. It seems like politicians spend more time bashing each other than they do standing up for the issues they believe in. All pretty disgusting to me.