The Spin Cycle

The Spin Cycle        November 5, 2012

            Political ads have monopolized the third of every viewing hour that television rips from our souls for commercials.  Citizens united has made the word “monopolized” appropriate in this context, in a billion ways.  Everybody (almost) is tired of it.  Fear not.  Election day is coming.  Soon it will stop.  At least, for a while.

            Senate candidate and American hero Bob Kerry quipped that if he is elected, he will have to get right to work because by February politicians will all be thinking about re-election.  Politicians, unlike statesmen and women, are in the spin cycle continuously, extracting our reason and agitating our emotions—it’s their life.  It’s my idea of Hell.

            Spin works on us partly because we forget it between elections—even those emotional clingers.  They grab us, but deep down, we can spot the crap, and mentally we flee from it.  Still, as soon as we forget, we are vulnerable to the next wave, the next mind-numbing volley.   

            There is hope.  Like a drug, spin becomes less and less effective.  The cycle has to become more frequent until it is almost constant.  The shorter the cycle, the more resistant we become.  Exaggerations have to be increasingly dramatic.  Misdirection has to come closer to outright lying.  We’ve all seen enough “Big Lie” this time around to more skillfully spot it in the future.  The takeaway is this: it is important to learn to recognize manipulation, of any kind, even if we agree with the manipulator’s objectives.

Well, maybe not so hopeful for congress getting anything useful done, but at least there is some surcease from the effects of all those spin darts.