Blind to the Truth

Most of the time I simply allow the natural beauty of the birds I feature to speak for itself, but occasionally I feel the need to emphasize that appreciating Nature’s beauty is no longer enough in a society that seems determined to sacrifice it all to sell more stuff. That’s doubly true now that we’ve been Trumped, as anyone who loves the environment surely already knows. I generally don’t use words like “good” or “evil,” but I would have to say that Scott Pruitt, head of the E.P.A., is Pure Evil.

Although I have a couple of Dan Fogelberg albums, I hadn’t heard of his album “The Wild Place” until recently when I purchased it through iTunes. My favorite song on the album has to be Blind to the Truth.

In the overcrowded cities where the nights are bright as day
You spend your weekly paycheck and turn your eyes away
From the crisis we’ve created with our self-indulgent ways
Living like there’s no tomorrow, well that just might be the case
Now they’re tearing down the forests and the jungles of Brazil
Without a second thought about the species that they kill
But extinction is forever and still the forests fall
And push it ever closer to extinction for us all

But you’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
And you can’t see nothing
Cause you’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
And the judgment day is coming

Now the politicians bicker on the early evening news
Pledging their allegiance to whoever they can use
The corporate bosses snicker as they watch the profits soar
They don’t care what they make next month just as long as it is more
They take our farms and marshlands, drive nature to the wall
Just so they can build another Goddamn shopping mall
And it doesn’t seem to matter if they cannot see the stars
As long as they can keep on building obsolescent cars

They’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
No they can’t see nothing
They’re so blind to the truth, blind to the truth
But the judgment day is coming

Now you cannot drink the water and you cannot breathe the air
The sky is ripping open and you still don’t seem to care
The soil is tired and toxic and unable to provide
The clock is running out and there is nowhere left to hide
Now there’s laws that we must live by and they’re not the laws of man
Can’t you see the shadow that moves across this land
The future is upon us and there’s so much we must do
And you know I can’t ignore it and my friend neither can you

4 thoughts on “Blind to the Truth”

  1. Thanks, hadn’t heard or seen this; powerful message and all too painfully true. Not sure if “pure evil” quite applies to Scott Pruitt in the sense that he doesn’t quite match the unadulterated malevolence of, say, Charles Manson or Hitler, but that may to quibble over mere degrees. In any case, whatever one says of Pruitt can be applied with perfect symmetry and in good conscience, I think, to his boss, who is simply a bad human being and fit for neither friendship nor leadership of any kind.

    1. I’m not using “pure evil” in the Biblical sense because for all I know Pruitt might be a loving family man. I’m using it more in the sense that his efforts will probably end up killing or hurting more people than Manson ever could have.

      Perhaps a better analogy is that he is Capitalism’s Nazi. His belief that profits are more important than water or air is just plain short-sighted, and “wrong,” if not evil.

      1. He’s wrong and deluded, for sure, but I suspect he THINKS he’s serving humanity by ignoring the environmental doomsayers whom he sincerely thinks are…wrong & deluded! Whereas pure evil ala Manson & Hitler harbors overt ill will and hatred for humanity. But you’re quite right that Pruitt’s almost willful blindness may help contribute to far more deaths than Manson & even Hitler carried out, for that matter, a mere 6 million Jews and a couple million more combatants representing a trifle compared to what may yet await us if we continue down our present path.

  2. Here in Northern Minnesota we have the amazing Boundary Waters Wilderness where in my younger years I spent weeks canoeing, portaging and primitive camping. Even today, in the Fall or soon after the ice goes out you might spend a week there, paddle 40 different lakes, camp along the shore, and never encounter another person. You can (with a tiny amount of common sense) drink the water directly from the lakes. Fishing isn’t great, because the lakes are too clean.

    All of this is the result of years of fierce battles by the environmentalist Sigurd Olson and a progressive Forest Service. Sig was even burned in effigy in Ely, MN on the edge of the Boundary Waters. Any motorized travel whatsoever was banned, as were cans and bottles etc. Now, of course, it is the lifeblood of the small towns around it although, unfortunately, the wealthy have discovered!

    This is an example of why “evil” is not too strong a word for those who fail to protect our wilderness areas or, in the case of Pruitt, actively seek to destroy them for money.

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