Spinmeisters: We Are Naked Under Our Clothes

By Jim May

Jim Mays Spinmeisters is the first commentary of its kind in the world of literature. It may likely become the definitive work describing message management or, as he describes it in many helpful examples throughout the book, the art of conditioning a narrative for the purpose of influencing others. He demonstrates this in all facets of life including areas where you would obviously expect to find it such as advertising and politics for sure, but also hidden subliminally in other everyday occurrences within government policies or lack thereof, business, religion and health influences.
As the subtitle might infer, he explains that there is more than one way to say something, and homage is paid to those artful few who are able to grasp a subject and restate its meaning in a twist to serve their particular purpose; that is, beyond the temporal abilities of mere mortals. These masters of persuasion, especially those who plot and plan specific effects, are highly regarded in their fields. He explains that we know them professionally as political consultants, crisis management consultants, marketing strategists, religious proselytizers, doctors, psychiatrists, business managers, military planners, and accountants among others; also, not to be excluded, they can be found among friends, relatives, associates, and occasionally in the mirror.
There are no sacrosanct subjects. He addresses the foundations of religion, government policy, medical doctrine, homophobia, treatment of women, and other important topics of our society each exemplifying the study of persuasion and its abilities to shape perception.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503558175

Jim May

Jim May is a recent Pennsylvania transplant to Southern California following the sale of his portfolio of technical marketing and manufacturing companies headquartered in Pennsylvania. He is enjoying his second life with many activities besides authoring this third book, including chartering his sailing yacht and teaching sailing, marine navigation and nautical team-building exercises from his local harbor at Dana Point, portrait oil painting, and philanthropic charity work. Although Jim has maintained in the past that he is a fiction writer, that line has since been blurred with his poignant commentaries. Regardless of the genre or subject, he uses the same logic and storytelling abilities to lead the horse to water. The rest is deliciously up to us. He will tour you through the beauty of language manipulation in Spinmeisters’ interesting compendium of extensive examples. He will entertain you while demonstrating the intellectual skills of so-called spin doctors in all walks of life including both those who are purely soliciting with an honest but biased intention and also those who are unabashedly scheming to achieve their results. Destined to be an all-time reference work on the subject, Spinmeisters sets a new awareness of the ever-present language conditioning found in our daily lives. It’s both a detailed instructional manual and also an entertaining commentary based on many of the most important issues of our time. You will recognize some of the characters in it including possibly yourself. Jim always welcomes your comments at [e-mail].

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Copyright © 2015 by Jim May.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015904887

ISBN:     Hardcover      978-1-5035-5815-1

               Softcover        978-1-5035-5816-8

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Rev. date: 04/20/2015

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CONTENTS

Dedication

For Your Consideration

Acknowledgments

Preface

LINGUISTIC LEVERAGE

Verbi Oscuro

The Art Of Positioning

Malapropisms, Juxtapositions, Oxymorons

BUSINESS

Business Talk

Trading Stamps

No Silver Lining

Cooperate To Proliferate

Potpourri

GOVERNMENT

Insulting Our National Intelligence

Homelessness

The Middle Class

Prosperity

The Minimum Wage

Immigration

Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting

The Twenty-Eighth Amendment

POLITICS

Politics 101

Politics 102

Politics 103

Politics 104

Politics 105

Politics 106

Unintended Consequences

RELIGION

Faith

HEALTH

Cholesterol

Abortion

Homophobia

The Right Stuff Of Misogyny

Dieting

Hospital Costs

Affluenza

Visualization

Hypnosis 101

Hypnosis 102

Hypnosis 103

Bibliography

Also By Jim May

DEDICATION

To make the world a better place.

I’ve known quite a few engaging people, and I have to say that I’ve been fortunate to enjoy the company of a great number who are basically honest and straightforward. Not one as I recall is a malicious spinner of facts. All of them form the basis of my thinking in one way or another on this subject. This is life, for sure. I am a product of their influences as much as I want to believe that I am a product of my own perfect independent thinking process. I do realize that I probably don’t know to what degree I owe one or the other. I do know what I know, and as the saying goes, I don’t know what I don’t know.

In all my life, I have waxed on my associative inputs and waned on my assimilation of these facts once they were processed through my gray matter. All my associations in one way or another have contributed to these writings. I remember having to report to a terribly incapable and ineffective supervisor in my early career. I did very well in my own work, but when I had anything to do with my manager, I simply said to myself, I can learn from anyone, even if it is what not to do. It helped me retain some sense of respectful interplay in those days.

My 6th grade elementary school class at John Greenleaf Whittier School in Scranton, Pennsylvania anxiously looked forward to every Friday afternoon, but not in the way you might usually assume. Our teacher Ms. Culkin would organize her English class into a sentence diagramming baseball game. That’s right, we actually enjoyed the horribly dreaded of all school children’s tasks – diagramming sentences. She would choose two team captains, and they would in turn choose teammates hopefully stacking the deck in their favor by picking the smartest kids for their teams. After a successful diagram, the student would proceed to first base at one of the corners in the room and subsequently progress to each of the other corner bases and to home for a score as their team members made it around the bases behind them. After three misses, the opposing team got up to bat. In this one exercise as a class we learned our gerunds and infinitives, the differences between a direct object and a predicate adjective, and we really learned how to diagram since we were mentally embedded with each one of our team members as they took their turns. Our minds, hearts and spirits were involved, and as a result more than that, we were subjected subliminally to an elegant atmosphere of esprit de corps pulling for one another as each student got up to bat with chalk in hand at the blackboard to receive the sentence as dictated by Ms. Culkin.

After sixth grade, each of us went on to various junior high school classes in different schools, and we were light-years ahead of the students from other elementary schools in terms of diagramming, parts of speech, and a greater literacy as a result, and probably also with a much more positive outlook. That crafty Ms. Culkin pulled a Tom Sawyer fence whitewashing gambit on us, and we loved it. I can remember the scene vividly to this day. She disguised a typically mundane and misunderstood subject into an exciting amusement for our popular consumption. Ms. Culkin was the first spinmeister I ever met.

We are a landscape of all we have seen.

—Isamu Noguchi,

sculptor and landscape architect

I have strived to present these commentaries as just the facts and without my biases. However, I’m sure my predispositions do somehow appear throughout, if for no other reason than by my emphasis in selecting the subject matter to begin with, or in making obvious points with certain authority. Nevertheless, I tried to include enough material on all positions when appropriate so you can be the judge and form your own conclusions. In fact, some of the content is from the opinioned observations of others, and I acknowledge their contributions from my life of association with them.

Furthermore, there are many more definitive examples of message conditioning than those that I have included here, and I’m sure readers will be able to identify others that are obvious to them. However, I feel that those contained herein are the best examples from this adulterated branch of the linguistic tree. They cover most situations while staying on the ethical side just short of outright lying, and in most cases, they truly can be defended by their practitioners as legitimate expressions of their positions. By studying each illustration in these examples, we can be much more aware of the hidden appearances of these biases in every aspect of our daily lives—except, of course, when you encounter anyone as astute as Ms. Culkin.

As an example from the world of comedy, I remember a little story by country comedian Andy Griffith, who said, Those city people who bought that house down the street put screens in all the windows and doors. They’re pushin all their flies out on the rest of us. This is spin at its best.

While you may be motivated by some of the commentaries, please realize that they are foremost a simple observation of the subject matter and in no way endorse any political, legal, medical, ethical, or social approaches. A professional in each respective field should be consulted for any personal pursuits in these areas.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

Some books are to be tasted,

others to be swallowed,

and some few to be chewed and digested.

—Sir Francis Bacon

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A special expression of gratitude to Agnes Gallone, a very devoted educator who is my toughest critic and great supporter. She included my early manuscript in her voracious reading schedule and had all the perception to raise it to another level, which gave me peace of mind that it had been vetted by an utmost authority.

I would also like to thank Marian Miskell, a greatly admired writer and editor who has always been able to find the time to share her valuable insights and suggestions to enhance the finished product. Her deft perception and sense of linguistic construction were invaluable to the end product.

My inspiration for the opening John Donne quotation that is cited in the following preface was acquired from my association with a humble man of letters, Chuck Gibson. He has quietly helped more people in our community and throughout his career than will ever be known; I am among them. He always has a different opinion from mine and vigorously defends it until it’s time to settle on a resolution and embrace it. He is wise, fair, tough-minded, and delivers his opinions with a velvet glove-covered fist. My thanks go to a creditable critic.

I’m fortunate to also have an in-house critic of my writing and in all other aspects of my life, my wife Ann, who is a ravenous reader and relies on her intrepid intuition to communicate her repairs of my presentations whether they be writing or any other facets of my world. I thank her for her candidness.

PREFACE

No man is an island,

entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent,

a part of the main;

if a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less,

as well as if a promontory were,

as well as if a manor of thy friend’s

or of thine own were;

any man’s death diminishes me,

because I am involved in mankind,

and therefore never send to know

for whom the bell tolls;

it tolls for thee.

Excerpt from Meditation XVII, Devotion upon Emergent Occasion, generally known as No Man Is An Island, by John Donne in 1624, written after hearing nearby church bells ringing the death knell for a funeral, and accordingly pondering his own possible fate to follow a serious sickness from which he was suffering.

These writings begin by referencing John Donne’s notably historic piece of insight as one of the most beautiful revelations of human thought ever. We are generally thoughtless meanderers in our daily lives, rarely associating the fate of others with that of our own or ours with theirs. In many cases, our lives are mindless repetitions of day-to-day existences; in other ways, it’s a cognitive dissonance—a denial of the impending disasters and realities of life that we are loath to address. It can be a dissociation from reality, a sort of survival mechanism that allows us to carry on. Donne has given centuries of humanity a reminder—a recognition that everything we do and everything we experience affects everyone else in at least some small way. We are all the lesser for it to paraphrase Donne, or as I like to think, When a good deed is done, we are all the greater for it.

Every day, leave the world a better place than when you found it is an ubiquitous thought we hear these days. It is a modern derivative from American Boy Scout founder Robert Baden Powell’s last writing in 1945, which advised us to Leave the world a better place than when you found it. Historically, the quote is most attributable to Rev. Cotton Mather, a prominent New England Puritan minister and strong influence of Benjamin Franklin who wrote, After passing through the door to a room, be sure to make it a better place before opening the door to leave. Again, he is just one of probably many social and religious philosophers to advise this simple credo.

Donne, Powell, and Mather all remind us of something we should already realize and be prepared to do but probably don’t. These philosophers serve a grand purpose for humanity, a purpose we need to have ingrained upon our thinking as a society and most importantly as individuals. We don’t practice these precepts nearly enough to have them become a way of life. If we did, the world would be a much better place. Instead, at the very least, we are all guilty of some degree of dissociative spin for not adhering to or even recognizing these concepts.

Reminding ourselves of these writings ensures that we will tend to live by them. We might remember to Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. It amounts to really simple acts: just hold the door open for someone, just let the person cross the street in front of your car, just let someone else go first, just smile, just put the cart back into the corral at the supermarket, just say hello to a passerby, just give a compliment, just say I appreciate it, just say Thank you, just get out of someone’s way in a crowded aisle, just ask Can I help? or just volunteer, just be nice. That’s it! The world would be a much better place every single day if only even one of us would think to do just one of these things. It’s so simple yet very powerful. If only one person in the world does one nice thing, then the whole world becomes a better place. Then think what happens when someone else observes the nice act and repeats it and on, and on. The multiplier effect can go around the world in probably a matter of minutes.

This simple thought came home to our entire family recently upon the death of my brother-in-law Paul O’Neill. He was eighty-three years old and had left a legacy of helping others which would be hard to equal. Two hundred people attended his funeral, and during his eulogy, they were asked if he ever helped any of them. Every single person in the audience raised his or her hand to signify that they were unselfishly helped by Paul throughout the time they knew him, most of them many, many times over in big and important ways. He helped people find jobs, repair their homes, provided oversight and voluntarily managed community projects, and contributed an untold number of unselfish personal acts in his business and personal life to everyone he met.

We commend those historical leaders and, of course, also people like Paul who quietly remind us to do good today. They call attention to that which is important. Their message conditioning is positive and well-meaning and deserves the primary position in this book. Their place of accolade is one of just a few I can think of because it is obscured by a myriad of twisted language examples that we will explore hereafter.

We are all practitioners of spin whether we know it consciously or not. We delude ourselves into thinking that what we are doing is "all we can do, enough, too much, more than anyone else would do, more than they deserve, all I can afford, all they need, all they expect, more than can be appreciated, all I’m capable of," or whatever. We are spinners. Donne, Powell, Mather and my brother-in-law Paul O’Neill among others deserve recognition as admirable conditioners of opinion. They are being honored here at the preface of this book since they need to remain beyond and separate from all those others who use their talents to manipulate language in order to twist the impacts of their communications.

LINGUISTIC LEVERAGE

VERBI OSCURO

Message management

As the subtitle of this book might infer, there is more than one way to describe something, and many times the original meaning is obscured. I pay homage to those who have mastered this art of spinning information, noting full well that it is usually bad information being conditioned for general consumption. Spinning usually suggests insincere, deceptive, or greatly manipulated messaging. The derogatory term spin itself has its own alter ego: impression management. I admire that term and its practitioners greatly and with professional respect. But before I go any further, let me explain that I do not condemn nor condone any application of this fine art; and I do not fault nor encourage its practitioners. I am merely an admirer of what has to be one of the absolute finer applications of language construction.

Probably from the beginnings of the spoken word and seen far back in early examples of the written word, a form of communications aimed at influencing others to accept some viewpoint or allegiance to another’s belief was not uncommon. In particular, when a logical approach was weak, the message was infused with negative emotional language meant to cause a reaction to embrace the presented ideology. Specifically, this has been broadly categorized as propaganda, a word which was originally meant to describe an honest middle ground of informative advocacy. From the Latin propagare, meaning to spread or propagate, with a historical connection to the Catholic Church’s middle ages Congregatio de Propaganda de Fede, this Congregation to Spread the Faith become known less officially as Propaganda. Owing to its effective techniques of organization and dissemination, the methodology began to be used just as commonly for political and commercial enterprises and quickly took on a negative meaning, which, more often than not, has stuck ever since. We’ve seen it used in wartime through false reports of the scope of battles won, numbers killed, and numbers of planes destroyed and by dropping leaflets to announce victories at hand, all to discourage, confuse, and demoralize the opposition

Commercial marketers consider themselves at war. They do the very same things as their military counterparts in their battles with competitors to confuse their minds, influence their strategies, change tactics, and inform, persuade, and remind the target customer base. It has become a mainstay in the study of persuasion. We see product comparisons as examples every day. It’s all about shaping perception. However, the common reference to propaganda nowadays is one of deception and borderline, if not over the line, dishonesty. At the very least, it is disingenuous. However, in the true sense of the word, propaganda is the foundation for our thinking when discussing message conditioning. It really does have a legitimate place in this art form, albeit a difficult one to recognize as an honest, upright position given its common intensely effective although derogatory uses in manipulating public opinion.

Further, I must mention that the legitimate advertising world is exempt from any citations found in these critiques. Its use of the positioning art is very admirable and a worthwhile contributor to our national economy. Positioning is a form of calculated consumer conditioning, which is effective at gaining influence in market share and product brand superiority. It reaches into the mind of the consumers and gives them what they are expecting; however, it is more of a scientific discipline than devious art form that most spinmeisters practice. It’s why we remember that Avis tries harder because it’s number two. It’s how the Marlboro Man taught us that it’s macho to smoke his brand. ’It’s why we think of 7-Up as the Uncola. It’s why Mr. Clean is the number one cleaning detergent. And to mention my all-time favorite, it’s why the best car battery we think of when we need to buy a new one is a Die-Hard by Sears. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Not only is there more than one way to describe something by wordsmithing, but there is also more than one tone; there is also more than one accentuation; and we all know there are various body language signals which change the strict meaning of a word, phrase, sentence or entire message. Let’s look at a classic exercise from Dale Carnegie’s popular training course How to Win Friends and Influence People. The following six-word sentence can have six different meanings just by changing the emphasis and inflection on each one of its words as follows.

I never said he stole money.

I never said he stole money.

I never said he stole money.

I never said he stole money.

I never said he stole money.

I never said he stole money.

Amazing, isn’t it? Even without any body language, for example over the telephone, we can convey an entirely different meaning to the exact same group of words. We do this every day without much forethought. It’s natural. That’s worthy of note, and it’s quite interesting to be aware of this technique when we hear it used. It’s when someone consciously knows how and when to craft such a specific expression that is really special, at least by observations of artistic knowing spinmeisters.

Note that every connotation relating to spin in these presentations will be italicized. Any reference to this subject will deservedly be highlighted as such. It’s amazing where such messages can be found in our everyday lives and how we are so easily influenced by them. I have tried to keep my personal beliefs out of each narrative and have taken no position on any of them whether they discuss religion, politics, ethics, morality, or suspect behavior. I certainly do have opinions about each one of them, but our goal here is to just admire them for the creative linguistic art form that they are—verbi oscuro from the Latin obscure words—and to make no judgments as to their applications.

Body language is the most influential all-important key element in person-to-person communication. We can size people up within no more than twenty seconds when we first meet them. No matter what they are saying, we can tell what the real meaning is simply by looking at their posture, their relative interactive positioning, their eyes, and their bodily presentation. It has been determined that 57 percent of the meaning of people’s communication is conveyed by their body language. Another 35 percent is gleaned by the tone and emphasis of the person communicating, such as in the Dale Carnegie example above. The rest is by the actual words spoken, which leaves a mere 8 percent—an astounding revelation but true nonetheless. We’re dealing here with just 8 percent of the effect of the communicated word, such as in written press releases or relayed information by way of an appointed emissary. As powerful as body language and the spoken tone are, combining for an overwhelming 92 percent of the message’s intention, the effect of the remaining 8 percent fragment can be transformed to carry a weighted effect of inordinately greater influence and possibly one equal to that of the two other components combined.

I speak two languages: body and English.

—Mae West, actress, playwright, comedienne

Many times a heavier or, alternatively, a lighter weight can be substituted into a more proper artistic modification of a word or phrase. How this distillation is done is in the purview of a very few number of talented people, people who earn their keep by deflecting the true meaning of a situation to something more palatable, or at least more consumption-friendly to suit their particular purpose. We’ve become used to the terms, and as such, they have become socially acceptable. Consequently, even the mask they put on the dreadful circumstances is effective at dispelling the seriousness of otherwise contemptuous situations.

Think about the evolution of this familiar terminology, which describes a reduction in the workforce when people are scheduled to lose their jobs:

fired

pink slip

laid off

downsizing

right-sizing

workforce balancing

realignment of priorities

early start to your next career — This beauty was the creation of former General Electric Corporation CEO, Jack Welch. It’s a brilliant escape of conscience, probably so that he could sleep well at night.

We accept the more palatable terms because of our inherent distaste for bad news and also our readiness to always desire to see the bright side of a situation. No matter how dire the reality, we are predisposed to look for a more agreeable approach to most all situations. We naturally welcome a more friendly way of describing something, especially something potentially painful.

Here is another. It’s my all-time favorite. It’s derived from the narrative used to describe positions in the debate about abortion rights in the United States. For years, there were only abortionists and antiabortionists—sinners and saints, as it were. Another position was promulgated from all the circumstances, which eventually manifested themselves in the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision to allow the killing of a fetus as the right of a woman. I’ll devote an entire chapter to this later in this book. I have to note that the creative choice of words used in this particular issue is one of the major motivations for my writing this book. Regardless of any religious, moral, legal, or ethical position—and I mean all that aside—let’s examine the creative progression in spin terminology that has evolved during this never-ending debate:

antiabortion vs. abortion

life vs. abortion

life versus women’s rights

life versus choice

life versus family planning

life versus reproductive health

Choice, family planning, reproductive health—that’s brilliant. It’s a deflection, of course, but nonetheless brilliant spin. I identify it as dissociative identity. Not only does it address the confrontation, but at the same time it also sidesteps it by creating a seemingly third other position, i.e., abortion, antiabortion, or choice. I’ll discuss the illogical but enormously effective use of this term later, but for me, it has been a lesson in intellectual sleight of hand beyond the obvious awareness of even most deeply involved participants in this conversation.

Further, in another related example, you may recall when Pres. George W. Bush issued a dictate to the world after the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC, demanding of other nations, You are either with us, or are with the terrorists. It seemed straightforward enough for most of us to understand what he meant. However, the French immediately responded, No, we are not with you, nor are we with the terrorists. In other words, they exercised choice. It’s almost as though there was never a realization that there could be more than just two positions. Magnifique, mon Dieu! We’re still your friend, and we’re still not the friend of the terrorists. In other words, We don’t need to be involved with your problems. The term freedom fries emerged as a result to replace the name of one of America’s favorite snacks, the french fry, and it has had a lasting effect on the world’s opinion of France’s already weak dependability as an ally.

US president Barack Obama made the same mistake again in August 2013 when he confronted Syria’s use of chemical weapons in its civil war offensive against the country’s insurgents, demanding of Syria’s leadership, Hand over your chemical weapons, or we’ll attack you on a level commensurate with your offenses against humanity. You’ve crossed the red line I established a year ago by using chemical weapons on your own people. Instead of Syria complying, a complex series of international situations and confrontations developed because of this outside interference in Syria’s civil war. This continued into mid-September until further diplomacy took hold. It was somewhat due to the advice of Syria’s closest ally, Russia, and almost equally, due to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s first public interview about the unrest on a broadcast TV network. He explained that he was merely putting down insurrections conducted by at least twelve terrorist and rogue organizations within his country, including a large contingent of Al-Qaeda and Hamas terrorists. But eventually, he acquiesced to eliminating his insidious chemical weapons—at least he said he would. Quietly and behind the scenes, everyone worldwide, and especially in the United States, was thankful for his transparent cooperation to allow decommissioning of Syria’s chemical weapons and was content afterward to let him battle Al-Qaeda and continue killing people conventionally with bombs and bullets right in his own country, probably with an increase of Russian weapons available to serve his cause. There truly was a worldwide sigh of relief. Everyone involved came to fully realize that the situation could only get worse if Assad was defeated. That Al-Qaeda could achieve ruling power was untenable. In this situation also, there was a third choice: diplomacy. How about that for a change?

I enjoy spotting these distortions and admire a good linguistic twist when I find one from the never-ending supply within our daily lives. We are bombarded by commercial, political, social, and religious persuasions attempting to influence our decisions without our knowing it. Or, are they?

THE ART OF POSITIONING

Legitimate spinning

The study of advertising brand enhancement helps understand the less admirable types of spin used in politics, crisis management, and common forms of consumer influence. The advertiser looks to increase its presence in the marketplace by occupying a position in its prospects’ minds. To do this, it must abandon the old credo of trying to be all things to all people. Instead, a critical area is identified, preferably one in which competitors don’t have a hold. Then the prospect is assaulted with influential messages. They are designed to hook into the considerations of the prospect with the intent of becoming a part of the prospect’s decision-making process when he is filling a need by buying the product.

Advertising occupies one of three stages of influence as it relates to a target audience, namely by informing, persuading, or reminding. In other words, informing the market that you even exist, persuading the market that your product is best, and finally reminding users of your product that they’ve made the right choice. The key is to develop a resonance relating to the need of the prospect. It’s not about the advertiser and his product. Conversely, it’s an emotional connection to the mind of the prospect. The prospect’s need is the all-important element. We see it every day. "Coke is the one subliminally tells us that our number one choice is Coke; Baseball, hotdogs, apple pie, and Chevrolet" beautifully furled Chevrolet into the metaphorical American flag and Americana whether we asked for it or not.

I still remember Dinah Shore singing her very popular jingle in the early days of television. Our whole family anxiously waited to join in singing along with her every Saturday night at the end of her TV show. "See the USA in your Chevrolet. America’s the greatest land of all. Phonetically, it is even more fun to remember as Seeeeee thaaa Yeww Esss Aaaaay in your Chevvv Roe Laaaay. Americaaah’s the greatest land of aaaall." Then Dinah would put her hand to her lips and blow her signature kiss to us, and we’d all return it with a loud Mmmmm … aaahhh! My father drove Chevrolets