By Joan King

It's almost impossible to tell somebody something they don't want to hear. When confronted with unwanted news, people tend to close down mentally.

Facts are disregarded. (They're probably skewed.) Logic is ignored. (It's just propaganda.)

We gravitate toward opinions that reinforce our beliefs and disregard those we believe to be "liberal" or "conservative" or "politically motivated." Unfortunately there are certain "inconvenient truths" (the title of Al Gore's movie on global warming) that must be faced if our civilization is to survive.

Our present way of life is unsustainable. Our technology, wonderful as it is, depends on too many factors that cannot continue indefinitely, that may not, in fact, survive another 50 years. The use of fossil fuel is just one of them.

Technology, of course, does help us, but it carries a huge risk. The "inconvenient truth" about nuclear power is that we still haven't faced the problem of radioactive waste. Life didn't begin on this planet until the background radiation from creation fell below a certain level.

We are now reversing that timeline. Each year, we put a little more radiation back into the system.

Present day alchemists, our nuclear physicists, have actually created new elements and in doing so have generated radioactivity that will take hundreds of generations to decay (to return to background level).

We have done a pretty good job of isolating the really dangerous stuff, but we have only just entered the nuclear age. As we build more nuclear power plants, produce more nuclear weapons, the radiation and the risk will increase.

The other nuclear specter hanging over humanity is war. War has been a near constant throughout human history. While warfare has caused more suffering than any other human activity, it never has threatened humanity itself. Today it does. The number of nuclear armed nations is growing. Our skill at avoiding armed conflict is not.

It seems we haven't learned anything. America, a nation that believes itself to be the most enlightened, most humane, most socially responsible country on earth, has a long history of aggressive warfare against its weaker neighbors. Americans like war.

Too strong a statement? I think not. We certainly didn't resist the call when it was last sounded. In the last century alone, the United States has used its military might to overthrow at least a dozen foreign governments. Some were controlled by tyrants, but others were legitimately elected democracies.

This is not the kind of history taught in our school systems. It's not what we want to hear, not what we want our children to hear. You might say it is "inconvenient."

Stephen Kinzer's new book "Overthrow" is in this category. It describes in detail the U.S.-led "regime change" undertakings around the globe. A few of these overthrows were probably a benefit to the world at large, but most were not. Ultimately, many were not even beneficial to the United States.

The truly ugly part of these overthrows is the way U.S. dollars were used to incite unrest both at home and abroad, and ultimate bring about military aggression. To quote Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia: "There is no fortress so strong that money can't take it."

I have no doubt Mr. Kinzer's book is biased, but it is also based on a number of "inconvenient" facts. To point these facts out is not unpatriotic. I love my country as much as the next guy. I believe the American public truly desires liberty and justice for all, but to obtain these lofty goals Americans must recognize their own human frailties and understand the many ways in which they have been led astray in the past.

The accelerated rate of species extinction is another "inconvenient truth." All life is interdependent. It is not just the baby seals or great whales that are endangered. It's the small, unimpressive, and unloved creatures that burrow in the mud, crawl on the ground or dwell unobserved in the fields or rivers. They are part of the web of life. If through our own ignorance we disrupt too many of them, we endanger the whole system.

This is not welcome news. Why not change the TV channel or read a different columnist? It's natural to look away if you think these things don't concern you or that there's nothing you can do about it.

But you're wrong. You can. In fact, you are the only one who can.

You and a million other individuals, one by one.

Joan King's column appears biweekly.

© Originally published Tuesday, June 20, 2006

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