Among the many insights Peter Senge shared in his classic The Fifth Discipline, the Parable of the Boiled Frog is most appropriate for this piece.
A frog thrown into a pot of boiling water will jump out. But a frog immersed in cool water will enjoy its stay. If one raises the temperature slowly, the frog will adjust and remain complacent until it dies in boiling water. Such is the state of our nation for millions of inactive, unthinking Americans --- enough so that one can see the decline of our country playing out before us.
There are five critical symptoms of decline failing society:
Kevin Phillips listed five symptoms of the decline of leading societies (as he says, in no particular order) *
• Widespread public concern over cultural and economic decay
• Growing religious fervor, church-state relationship, or crusading insistence
• Rising commitment to faith as opposed to reason and a corollary downplaying of science
• Possible indications of a millennial event or the imminent belief in the second coming or Armageddon
• Hubris driven national strategic and military overreach, pursuing abstract international missions that the nation can no longer afford, economically or politically
Our nation is experiencing all five.
• We are conducting three major wars, with defense budgets in the $700 BILLION range, using borrowed monies; giving $800 BILLION in tax cuts, the bulk of it to the already wealthy.
• The richest among us (the DeVoss’, the Koch’s (Funders of the TEA Party), etc. are funding the drive to privatize healthcare, social security, and our education systems – not to improve them for everyone but to exclude from them the people who need them most. Many control the major media outlets, limiting access to unbiased news – while supporting efforts to de-fund news outlets like NPR and PBS.
• The commitment to faith has expanded into the sciences, depleting our nation’s abilities to advance our knowledge and maintain a global competitiveness. The religious right has implemented a decades long plan to infiltrate the education and government arenas, and successfully so – to the point that candidates for office must pass an unwritten litmus test just to get through the primaries.
Can there be more? Certainly, and you can feel free to add to what’s here.
My point is that it is time to unite as moderates, progressives and liberals to counteract the forces that are aligned to destroy the nation of our forefathers. There is no time to waste. Let’s start our own movement here and now.
* Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy, Penguin, 2006 {P.220
