Spin

        Hi Bloggers! I thought I would start of the blogging week with a look on how manipulated elections are as well as the politicians.  Everything has bias in politics.  When bias is spoken, it is called spin.  Politics also uses card stacking to get their point of view across.  These tactics are used by politicians, political parties, and special interest groups to convey their message in attractive way.  Their goal is to get you to agree with them.  
        Spin is defined as a propaganda technique to sway or influence your opinion by manipulating the facts.  They often bring up a bunch of excuses or say something should get done but don’t do it.  Sometimes, they will try and redefine a simple word like “where is he” or “it is” or “relations” so they can manipulate what they or a candidate said. Here are some examples.

PRINCE CHARMING
You! You can't lie. So tell me
puppet... Where is Shrek?!
Pinocchio thinks.
PINOCCHIO
(nervous)
Well, I don't know where he's not.
Prince Charming gets in Pinocchio's face.
PRINCE CHARMING
You're telling me you don't know
where Shrek is?
Pinocchio is still a little nervous.
PINOCCHIO
It wouldn't be inaccurate to assume
that I couldn't exactly not say
that is or isn't almost partially
incorrect.
Pinocchio thinks he has the upper hand.
PRINCE CHARMING
So you do know where he is!
PINOCCHIO
On the contrary, I'm possibly more
or less, not definitely rejecting
the idea, that in no way, with any
amount of uncertainty that...
PRINCE CHARMING
Stop it.
PINOCCHIO (CONT'D)
...I undeniably do or do not know
where he shouldn't probably be.
END.

        You see that Pinocchio isn’t lying to Prince Charming.  He is manipulating the clause “where is Shrek.”  It is something that politicians use all the time to get out of trouble.  Probably the most famous of all is Bill Clinton.  He “mislead” the people of the United States by saying he didn’t have relations with that woman and he didn’t have sex with her.  What are relations? What is sex?  When he was caught with evidence, he squirmed his way out by taking a broad approach and telling the people to focus on the real issues.  By downplaying it and not directly apologizing for lying, he effectively used spin to avert a bigger crisis.  Sarah Palin did the same thing when she was caught saying Africa was a country.  She down played it and said she was taken out of context.  Instead of apologizing to the media about her mess up, she denied it and gave a “non apologizing, apology.”  Barack Obama is guilty! Yes, our current President said the famous “You didn’t build that!” sentence that shook the campaign.  Romney used that for a month, saying that Obama said businesses didn’t build themselves.  The government had built it for them.  It was taken out of context, but it swung a lot of votes because Mitt Romney effectively used spin to influence the voter.
         Card Stacking is the more familiar and more common way that politicians and interest groups get their messages across to people.  Card Stacking is defined as putting up all the positives of your idea or philosophy and mentioning all the negatives of the opposing idea or philosophy.  Basically, in a simplistic form, the Democrats will praise their ideologies and criticize the Republican Party.
Interest groups are the best at card stacking.  Pro Life Association puts up all of these facts and statistics for being pro-life and mentions all the negatives of having abortions.  This interest group gives subjective speeches and drives to make you believe abortions are wrong.  That’s their goal.  Practically every interest group works the same way.  One sided information to try and get you, the voter, to side with them.
         All media is bias.  All elections are bias.  When you are watching the news or listening to political debates, try really hard to listen for the bias and sort in your mind what is and what isn’t true.  You should have information from both sides before you make a judgment and a decision on the news or who you should vote for.   Just a thought for the 2016 elections.  

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