“Tall” Coffees and Assault Weapons

Tricks of the Deception Trade

Trick #1: Misnomers• The “ASSAULT WEAPON BAN” signed by President

Clinton in 1994 didn’t really ban assault weapons----at least not the ones you see pictured so often in the hand of soldiers and terrorists. Fully automatic weapons of all kinds were outlawed around the time of Bonnie and Clyde. It has been illegal to own a real machine gun in the US since 1934 (except with expensive and hard to get Govt. permits).

• All the law did was ban the manufacture and import of certain semiautomatic weapons, which can’t be fired any faster than an ordinary pistol or rifle despite their military-style looks. The very term “assault weapon ban” gave a misleading impression.

Other Examples of Trick #1• Both Kerry and Bush used the expired law in the

2004 presidential campaign, misleading the public.

• Using sizes: Large? Grande? Venti? Super Colossal?

• You should never have to say “Grande Supremo” unless you are addressing a tribal warlord who is holding you captive and threatening to kill you!

• JUST SAY YOU WANT A LARGE COFFEE, PEOPLE!!!

• Ask these questions What’s behind a name: Does it really describe the thing they are trying to sell me? What would be a more accurate name for it?

Trick #2: Frame It and Claim It• Death Tax instead of Federal Estate Tax• Privatizing Social Security—personal savings

accounts• Tax relief instead of “your membership dues

in America”• Compassionate conservatism • No Child Left Behind• Ordinary citizens should recognize that both

sides try to used words that we’ll automatically accept or reject without thinking too much. Judging and issue by its name is as foolish as judging a book by its cover.

Trick #3: Weasel Words• Up to 50% off!• You may already be a winner!• WINNERS CONFIRMATION FORM

ENCLOSED• Hawaiian Punch “Fruit Juicy Red”• Estee Lauder “Skin Perfecting Crème

Firming Nourisher” makes tiny lines seem to disappear. (Seem is the weasel word)

Trick #4: Eye Candy• Advertisements for anti-depressants:

People look like they are having the time of their lives while the announcer is telling about all of the horrible side-effects.

(WE DO NOT SEE THE SIDE-EFFECTS, ONLY THE HAPPY PEOPLE!)

Trick #4: Eye Candy• Advertisements for anti-depressants:

People look like they are having the time of their lives while the announcer is telling about all of the horrible side-effects.

(WE DO NOT SEE THE SIDE-EFFECTS, ONLY THE HAPPY PEOPLE!)

                   

• Propagandists know that when words say one thing and pictures say another, it’s the pictures that count. To minimize retention, a propagandist says one thing while showing the opposite. When the 2 differ, what we see tends to override what we hear.

• Drug companies are very good at this type of trickery, showing smiling people, flowers, people in matching bath tubs, etc.

• What are some more examples of eye candy?

CBS Reporter Leslie Stal’s Reagan Piece on 60 Minutes

• Leslie Stal was worried that her criticism of Reagan during his 1984 campaign would “freeze out” her Washington connections.

• They loved the piece. When she was puzzled, they said, “Nobody heard what you said. The pictures and footage that you used was so upbeat that what you said was over-ridden.”

• EYE CANDY EFFECT: Pictures tend to overpower spoken words. That is the way that humans are wired.

• Kathleen Jamieson documented the eye candy effect in 1988 and 1989. During the presidential election campaign of l988, groups of voters were asked what they remembered seeing in the news the past week. (Distortions in both George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis’s campaigns were revealed.) People remembered seeing the pictures that went with the stories, but not the stories themselves.

George W. Bush• Visuals were used many times during

Bush’s presidency, sometimes to come back and haunt him.

• Examples: One sign that read • MISSION ACCOMPLISHED• Another sign that read:• PLAN FOR VICTORY

Supreme Court nominee John Roberts

• When he was a nominee for the Supreme Court, an ad ran that showed a bombed out abortion clinic. The speaker said, “America can’t afford a justice whose ideology leads him to excuse violence.”

• Roberts had actually condemned clinic bombers and violence, but the pictures transmitted an emotional message.

• It was pulled off the air, but did do damage.

WHAT SHOULD I DO?• WHEN YOU SEE DRAMATIC IMAGES,

LISTEN TO THE “FINE PRINT”. ASK YOURSELF, “WHAT ARE MY EARS TELLING ME ABOUT THIS PICTURE?” A PICTURE CAN INDEED BE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS---BUT THOSE WORDS AREN’T NECESSARILY TRUE!

Trick #5: The Average Bear

• Sometimes the “average” bears watching. President Bush sold his tax cuts to the public by claiming the average tax cut would be $1,586.

• Half of Americans got $470 or less. Bush wasn’t lying, just using a common mathematical trick. When most people hear the word average, they think typical.

• But the average isn’t always typical, especially when it comes to federal income tax: very wealthy people pay a very large share of the taxes and stand to get a very large share of benefits when those taxes are cut.

• Simplified Example:• 1000 people in town, including one super

rich person we’ll call Gil Bates.• Everyone in town is getting a tax cut.• $10 for everyone but Mr. Bates, who is

getting $90,010.• What’s the average? Divide the tax cuts

$100,000 by the residents—1,000. The average is $100. But that is not the typical cut.

Bush’s White House• His White House staff issued a “fact sheet”

in February 2006 that said, “Real after-tax income per person has risen 7.9% since the president took office five years earlier.

• The average was misleading. Most of the gains were at the top, and many if not most Americans lost ground.

• Example: Poverty went from 11.3 in 2000 to 12.6 in 2005. An estimated 5.4 Americans fell into poverty, more people than live within the city limits of Chicago and Houston combined.

• When you hear “average”, always ask, “Does that really mean typical?” A single number seldom tells the whole story, especially with something as big and complicated as the US economy or the federal tax system.

Trick #6: The Baseline Bluff• This is all about comparisons. For

example:• In 2004, John Kerry said, “Bush has a

plan to cut Social Security benefits by 30 to 45%.” That was false. He had stated repeatedly there would be no changes in benefits for anyone already getting them. Kerry was referring to a proposal that would hold future benefits even with the rate of inflation to be inline with incomes. After years, people would experience a 45% cut. Those who would be affected were still unborn at the time Kerry ran the ad.

• When you hear a politician talking about a “cut” in a program he or she favors, ask yourself, “A cut compared to what?”

TRICK #7: The Literally True Falsehood

Sometimes people pick words that are deceptive without being strictly, technically false.

Example: Monica Lewinsky said that she absolutely had no sex of any kind in any manner, shape or form with President Clinton.

His famous explanation: It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is…If “is” means is and never has been that is not---that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement.

• In other words, there had been sex, but not at the moment when the statement was made in court. Clinton was found in contempt in civil court for giving “intentionally false” testimony. He also denied having sexual relations with Lewinsky. His license to practice law in Arkansas was suspended for 5 years and he was fined $25,000.

• Even though redefining “is” didn’t work for Clinton, his remark shows us how clever deceivers can try to mislead us without---in their minds---actually lying.

• Another example is Stouffer’s Food Corp.• They made a literally true but misleading claim

about its Lean Cuisine frozen entrees in 1991, in a #3 million advertising campaign that said, “Some things we skimp on: Calories. Fat. Sodium…always less that 1 gram of sodium per entree.”

• Sodium is usually measured in milligrams---thousandths of a gram---and they contained 850 mg or about 1/3rd the recommended sodium for the day.

• They communicated false low-sodium claims.

• There are many other examples that we could look at, but I think these 2 are enough to show the literally true falsehood.

• When you hear vague phrases or carefully worded claims, always ask, “Are they really saying what I think they’re saying? What do those words mean, exactly? And what might they be leaving out?

Trick #8: The Implied Falsehood

When the United States went to war against Iraq in 2003, most Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had something to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After the 2004 election, , most Americans had the impression that President Bush had told them as much.

The National Annenbert Election Survey’s post election poll found that 67% of adults found the following statement to be truthful: “George W. Bush said that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11 attacks.” Only 27% found it untruthful.

Bush never said in public (or anywhere else that we know of) that Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks. The CIA didn’t believe he was involved, and no credible evidence has ever surfaced to support the idea. On many occasions, Vice President Cheney said that we have never been able to prove a connection. He did, however, say that it is possible that an Iraqi intelligence official had met lead hijacker Mohamed Atta in the Czech Republic in April 2001, despite a finding to the contrary to the Independent 9/11Commission. Cheney said, “We’ve never been able to confirm or to knock it down.” To many ears, Cheney was saying he believed there was a connection, and that he lacked only the proof. US intelligence agencies had found no credible evidence.

An example from advertising:• The Ad Force belt---implied that a person

would lose inches by wearing this belt that caused electrically stimulated muscle twitches around the belly.

• Get Rock Hard Abs with No Sweat• Lose 4 Inches in 30 Days Guaranteed…10

minutes• When they (FTC) finally got it off the market and

the advertisers agreed to pay $5 million, they had sold $83 million dollars worth of belts, the FTC said.

• WHEN YOU SEE OR HEAR SOMETHING BEING STRONGLY IMPLIED BUT NOT STATED OUTRIGHT, ASK YOURSELF,”WHY DO THEY HAVE TO LAY IT BETWEEN THE LINES LIKE THAT? WHY DON’T THEY JUST COME OUT AND SAY IT?”

• Often there’s a very good reason: what the speaker wants you to believe isn’t true.