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Kieran Pereira & Paige Knippenberg
Clesson
AP Language and Composition
2/9/09
Jackson, Brooks, and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. “From Snake Oil to Emu Oil.” unSpun:
Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation. New York: Random House, 2007:
3-23.
One-hundred years ago, Clark Stanley (the Rattlesnake King) sold a product he
called Snake Oil Liniment and claimed it cured many ailments. The Department of
Agriculture’s Bureau of Chemistry revealed Stanley as a fraud when they determined that
the cure-all did not really contain snake oil.
Stanley’s act of deception in the promotion of his product is one that is imitated
by many advertisers today, as apparent in Planet Emu’s 2006 advertising of their product,
Deception Wrinkle-Cheating Cream. This product was marketed as one that contained
“the only triple-refined emu oil in the world” and could not only hide wrinkles, but could
eliminate them with repeated use of the product. When further research was done, and
Planet Emu was asked for proof of their claims, they could only cite one scientific study
of emu oil’s abilities. This study only contained eleven test subjects who rated emu oil as
a better moisturizer than mineral oil, and there were no actual studies done of emu oil’s
effectiveness as a wrinkle-reducer/eliminator.
These two examples of spin in commercial advertising illustrate how although
time has passed, methods of product promotion have not changed over the last one-
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hundred years, and the different techniques of deception used by product promoters are as
sneaky as they ever were.
While spin encompasses commerce and politics alike, deceptive product
promotion is a minor problem compared with political spin. The over-exaggerated
commercial claims made for snake oil and emu oil can be compared to the political
claims made about crude oil. In the 2004 Presidential campaign, John Kerry and George
W. Bush spoke in their campaigns about making America “energy independent”.
However, this task was proved impossible by the Rocky Mountain Institute which
projected the cost of energy independence at $180 billion, at least $150 billion more than
either Kerry or Bush pledged.
Along with being able to trick voters in political spin, deception can be highly
profitable as well. Numerous people like “Dr.” Alex Guerrero have made thousands of
dollars by advertising their phony products as miracle-workers. This can in turn be bad
for the health of consumers. For instance, there was 2004 TV ad claiming that
“Listerine’s as effective as floss at fighting plaque and gingivitis. Clinical studies prove
it.” Judge Denny Chin of the US District Court of Manhattan ruled that studies “proved
only that Listerine is ‘as effective as improperly used floss.’” The belief by consumers
that Listerine could take the place of flossing could have negative long-term effects on
the health of their mouths.
Commercial deception also has the potential of costing people their lives. In 2004,
Seville Marketing Ltd., was sued by the FTC for deceptively advertising a product called
Discreet, which was supposed to work as a home test for HIV. Seville claimed that the
accuracy of its product was 99.4 percent, but the US Centers for Disease Control and
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Prevention found that 59.3 percent of tested kits provided inaccurate results, including
both false HIV-positive results and false HIV-negative results. Because of Seville’s
deceptive advertising, it can be concluded that many people either delayed treatment or
unknowingly spread the virus, undoubtedly costing many people their lives.
Politicians do not only use deception to make it seem like large and crucial issues
are easy to fix, but they also use it to deliberately fill voters’ heads with disinformation
about their opponents. Voters usually fall for this disinformation too, therefore potentially
altering the results of many elections.
Polling finds that voters are very unhappy with political deceivers, regardless if
they state their falsehoods outright of imply them. Bush ran a campaign ad in 2004 that
showed a pack of wolves, symbolizing terrorists about to attack. It was deceiving, and
stated that Kerry voted to cut intelligence spending even after the first terrorist attacks on
America. That first attack was a truck bomb that went off in the parking garage under a
World Trade Center in 1993.
John Kerry had in fact supported the regular increases in intelligence for years before the
incident that occurred on September 11th. The ad stated other falsities as well. It said
that Kerry voted to cut the intelligence spending by six billion dollars. It said that the
cuts he intended to make would weaken America’s defenses. It turns out, however, that
Kerry supported a one billion dollar cut to the bill. One billion dollars which is 3.7
percent of the total bill, and so you ask whether that would weaken America’s defenses.
The polling that was done found out the fifty-five percent of voters though that the ad
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was true. So the Bush deception had worked, and though they did not exactly lie, they
gave voters a false image of John Kerry’s support of intelligence spending.
Implied deception worked against Bush as well. When Michael Moore created the movie
Fahrenheit 9/11, viewers were led to believe that Bush allowed a special flight allowing
relatives of Osama bin Laden to leave the US while air space was closed during the days
following September 11th. Moore did not state that as a fact, but he implied it. The Bin
Laden’s, it turned out, didn’t depart until the week following September 11th. Twentytwo of the 26 people that were on Bin Laden’s flight were interviewed by members of the
FBI. None of them said that they had had recent conversation with Osama, or knew
about any terrorist activity, when they were asked questions. They would not have been
questioned had they left the country the normal way, rather then leaving with special
White House clearance. Fifty-two percent of the people thought the movie information to
be truthful.
Deception in politics does not stop once the election had ended. In nonelection years,
interest groups weigh in on topics and policy debates with TV ad campaigns. In 2005,
there was a radio ad by a conservative group that was called the Freedom Works, led by
former Republican House leader Dick Armey. It spoke of a proposed reform of asbestos
litigation, which was a misleading claim. A liberal group that was called Campaign for
America’s Future spoke of “Wall Street stockbrokers stood to get a $279 billion windfall
from the individual Social Security accounts that Bush outlined in some detail in 2005.”
And then a conservative group, Let Freedom Ring Incorporated, ran ads on TV that
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pushed for $4 billion security fences along the Mexican border. It showed images from
September 11th, and stated that illegal immigrants are good cover ups for terrorists.
The unfortunate truth is that the public is out in the open to the large amounts of
dishonesty and deception. The kind of deception not challenged by the governmental
regulators and courts, or even the other news media’s. The constituency and the traders
and the clientele must most unfortunately protect themselves, “if we know what’s good
for us.”
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