You don’t have to be a brain surgeon or rocket scientist to understand why Americans are boiling frogs.
The boiling frog story is a widespread anecdote describing a frog slowly being boiled alive. The premise is that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes that occur gradually. According to contemporary biologists the premise of the story is not literally true; a frog submerged and gradually heated will jump out. However, some 19th century research experiments suggested that the underlying premise is true, provided the heating is gradual enough. (Wikipedia)
The irony is that frogs are an endangered species, and so are working-class Americans.
People in nations with longer histories understand viscerally that they alone are responsible for making their governments accountable. And they are willing to give their lives to that end. And sometimes, if their governments are unresponsive and unjust, their only recourse is to bring those governments down. However, as we are learning in the Arab Spring, non-violent protest is the most effective and meaningful strategy for lasting change. We are no longer a planet of nations, we are a planet of human beings who share the same DNA and the same basic dreams of a decent and dignified life.
Corrente offers a wonderful list of 198 Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion. Unfortunately, as Americans continue to drive around encased in our vehicles and immured in our houses and places of employment, believing we are secure in the mass of our privatized possessions, belief we are immune to strangers, threats, and the forces of change, in reality we are lemmings falling off the cliff.
So far , as a nation, we are targets shackled and buried alive by consumerism, fueled by the most addictive substance on earth: oil. Visit any big box store, any mall, any entertainment venue, any airport and see if I’m wrong. No one will pry the zombified, oil-built corpse from our hands until the specter of famine, extinction, and climate melt-down begin to affect the wealthiest among us, and by then it will be far too late to do anything, because we will be in desperation, in survival mode by then. The Germans who elected Hitler understood this only after his atrocities made the news.
I’m sorry, but given the endless evidence of American acquisitiveness and craving for image, the monumental apathy and ignorance, fear and respect for authority, any optimism that suggests a turn-about rings false for me.
