Inconvenient Truths

BY MICHAEL REISIG – 

Sometimes it’s difficult to get people to recognize truths – when their incomes depend on their failure to address them. We’re a strange new society in a strange new world. When we run out of excuses we simply deny the truth – as if it was a poltergeist – only seen by some and rejected by most.

They say truth is subjective, and certainly without question, our politicians (and lately, even our Supreme Court), have come to that assumption. I’m reminded of a statement by German philosopher, Fredrich Nietzsche, who said, “The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more thoroughly you must seduce the senses to accept it.”

I suppose truths can also be convenient or inconvenient, but truth is the red-haired stepchild of progress, nowadays. Nobody wants to hear it – just keep it in the closet until it withers and dies. No one wants to know that all the new drugs and food additives we’re taking have made us the sickest culture since The Bubonic Plague passed through Europe. Nobody wants to know that fracking is destroying the earth and poisoning our water tables (because there’s too much frackin’ money being made from it.) Half the people in this country refuse to believe there is a jihad taking place across the globe, the other half don’t know what a jihad is (or could care less). We’re more concerned with what actress had whose baby than the fact that Los Angles and surrounding areas will be out of water in 25 years. Inconvenient truths – just keep your blinders on folks. Nothing to be concerned about here, just keep moving along.

The next generation – the ones that are left – are going to ask themselves, “What in the hell were our parents thinking?”

Yet, in the greatest of contradictions, Truth is one of the most malleable elements – because it can be twisted, just a little, by just a few words. And in that vein, we must all be beware of the half-truth – because we can never be certain which half we’ve received. Because of this, our senses are continually in a state of seduction, overwhelmed by a plethora of abstract truths and cloaked falsities from commercials, commentators, attorneys, and politicians. Every confrontation today has become a rabble-rouser’s paradise, (but just because it’s shouted in the streets doesn’t make it true.)

The majority of our leaders have discovered that it’s far easier to fool people than it is to convince them they’ve been fooled, and they have simply bought themselves a seat on the caravan to hell. If honesty were luminescent, the halls of Congress would look like a coal mine. I understand that it’s sometimes easier to ignore the inconvenient truths around us, but my friends, America has reached a crux. We need the courage and discipline to do what is needed now – not what is simply convenient. The Pacific Ocean is filling with plastic, reefs are dying across the globe, our lakes and rivers are becoming so polluted that in many places the fish still alive are no longer fit for human consumption, and all while we practice the rampant, indiscriminate development and use of medicines that carry page-long disclaimers and require an army of attorneys to defend the side effects. While all this is taking place, we have a doctrine of hate and violence that has risen out of the Middle East and is surging across the face of the planet with a momentum reminiscent of the times when glassy-eyed people raised their hands and shouted “Heil Hitler!”

It all reminds me of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “The truth is beautiful, but so are lies…”

The greatest challenge to truth is that we all see it with different faces. What is an undeniable truth to you is little more than guise to me.

God give us the strength to discern between the two.

The views and opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the ownership and staff of The Polk County Pulse. Michael Reisig is a freelance writer and published author whose works are reproduced throughout the globe.

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Jeri Pearson

Jeri is the News Director for Pulse Multi-Media and Editor of The Polk County Pulse. She has 10 years of experience in community focused journalism and has won multiple press association awards.

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