Oysten Dahle, Exxon’s former VP North Sea operations said, “Socialism failed because it could not tell the economic truth, and capitalism may fail because it cannot tell the ecological truth.”

It is not often I hear ‘leadership’ from an Oil company executive but that is precisely the message that should be shouted from the rooftops.

Well, so I think, anyway.

I won’t bore you with more environmentalism ranting although I will encourage you to follow Alex Morton on the Cohen Commission into the Fraser River Sockeye runs. Talk about exposing institutional lying!

I think all 3-digit IQ people are now onside with ‘protecting the planet’. You don’t need me to muddy the issue further. Nor will I get on a podium about capitalism and it’s evil conjoined twin brother, Greed. Everyone also knows about that. No, to me the essence of Mr. Dahle’s message is simply about telling the truth.

Truth-telling, it seems, has simply gone out of fashion. From being politically correct to the now-common poli-speak, from business jargon to burying our heads in the TV, from muted media to ‘being professional’, we seem to have incorporated the essence of lies into everything we do.

And remember: for evil to be done, good people only have to do nothing! If we aren’t actually lying, we are silently acquiescing to it. Did it start with political propaganda deemed so necessary to start a war? Did it start simply in the loose license of mass advertising? Maybe it started with the married customers of the world’s oldest profession. I dunno.

But it is pervasive.

All I know is that the truth is rarely heard anymore. No more John Crosbys’, no more Jack Munroes’. We still have Rafe Mair, thank God. And Alex Morton. But, really? If numbers of honest speakers means anything, truth-telling is dead.

And I am just as guilty. I pick and choose the hills on which I might die and more and more I am using diplomacy and double-speak rather than get-to-the-point truth in my communications. I just don’t want to offend or argue or inherit a legacy of animosity, ya know? Easier to say, ‘whatever’ and shrug and leave the issue alone. Easier for everyone.

I’d feel more guilty if I was being paid to ferret out the truth, though. Like the media. Or our politicians. Or even our ‘professions’ and institutions so overly invested in the status quo. Together, they promote the BIG LIE instead of any inconvenient truths and it is just too easy to go along. Isn’t it?

Imagine that? An Exxon executive makes me feel guilty! What is the world coming to?