U.S. is spinning out of control

"Spin," a form of propaganda achieved by providing an interpretation of events or a campaign to pursuade public opinion in favor or against an organization or public figure. "Spin Doctor," a person hired to manipulate public opinion.

Spin is commonly used in press conferences as a creative presentation of the facts that more often than not implies deception or manipulation.

I hate spin. All I want are the unvarnished facts, and I am capable of my own interpretation. Spin seems to get further and further away from actual truth in each election cycle. During this election cycle, I fear, the spin will be elevated to a new level. There will not be manipulation of truth, but rather, no truth at all.

Campaign ads on TV have to be the worst form of spin. I am baffled as to how someone can present an outright lie about another candidate without any repercussions. When the candidate being attacked complains, the ad is taken down. End of story.

Since the majority of the voting populace gets its information about a candidate from the TV, complete untruths can be stored in a person's memory as facts. It is like getting the news from the National Enquirer.

Once upon a time, there were individuals whose reputations were above reproach. We could believe what they said; it had to be the truth. Now, not even the chairman of the Federal Reserve is above the use of spin. It is to the point where I must verify from independent sources everything that any public figure says. Things are beyond "creative interpretation" in this election cycle, they are outright propaganda and no candidate or party is innocent.

I was born in the 1950s, a time when America was Utopia. You could trust your neighbor and feel safe walking downtown. You could take people at their word and business deals were consummated with a handshake. Kids could play all day in their neighborhoods without their parent's concern. They could even walk to school alone. What happened to that America?

We have become mindless consumers of crap (made in China). Paranoid and untrusting of everyone, we rarely get to know the people in our own neighborhood. We fear irrational things and ignore the obvious. We did it with the real estate bubble, and now we are ignoring the freight train of debt headed right for us. Nothing really bad can happen here. We believe this because politicians tell us everything is fine, and besides, nothing really bad has ever happened before. This is the USA, all that bad stuff we see on the nightly news is someplace else far away. We give a few bucks to charity and consider the problem solved.

The problems America faces are real, they are not going away and there is no easy fix to bring us back to Utopia. Time to watch "Doomsday Preppers" with the blinds closed.

• Carol Perry is a retired financial adviser and has been a Northern Nevada resident since 1983. She can be reached at Carol_Perry@att.net.