Part 16: Energy and the silent lie
Can you comprehend what it means to add 100 million people to the United States population in 33 years? How can you intellectually, rationally and emotionally accept that number of people added in a blink of time? Do you have any comprehension of the consequences?
What’s the easiest path for dealing with that next added 100 million people into our country? Short answer: ignore, deny, discount, pretend, reject or refute!
There’s another answer: Lie like a thief. Lie like a politician. If you tell the lie long enough and often enough—people accept it as the truth. It’s called the lie of “sustainable growth.”
Back in 1860, one of my favorite authors, Mark Twain said, “Almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in them. I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion; we can tell it without saying a word. For example: It would not be possible for a humane and intelligent person to invent a rational excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in the early days of emancipation agitation in the North, the agitators got but small help or countenance from anyone. Argue, plead and pray as they might, they could not break the universal stillness that reigned, from the pulpit and press all the way down to the bottom of society--the clammy stillness created and maintained by the lie of silent assertion; the silent assertion that there wasn’t anything going on in which humane and intelligent people were interested.
“The universal conspiracy of the silent assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, and always in the interest of a stupidity or sham, never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. It is the most timid and shabbiest of all lies…the silent assertion that nothing is going on which fair and intelligent men and women are aware of and are engaged by their duty to try to stop.”
As you read in Part 14, you noticed that Time Editor Richard Stengel represents “silent assertion” in his promotion of a lie. He’s so ensconced in the lie that he thinks it’s normal and acceptable that we add 100 million people in three decades.
Four weeks ago, I sent information packets and graphs to Publisher John Temple of the Rocky Mountain News; Dean Singleton of the Denver Post and several other top national newspaper publishers. I sent out similar packets showing our future dilemmas to top ABC, NBC and CBS executives in the Denver area. I said their kids would be victims of Colorado growth from 4.3 million to 9.7 million. I explained our water crisis. I asked to be interviewed to educate the public. I included self addressed stamped envelopes for them to respond and give me ideas on how to gain national coverage on this population crisis. I’ve done the same at 60 Minutes, Prime Time and Date Line. I sent letters to Brian Williams, Katie Couric and Charles Gibson.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
