how to boil a frog

Wednesday night, I watched the DVD of a new independent film called [Red State]* that wasn't exactly uplifting. It left me feeling sorry for the classic Red Staters, whose Christian religious faith leaves them with no ability to understand why their political party (the Republicans) lost the mid-term elections.

* not to be confused with Red State Roadtrip (2005)

Certainly they don't understand the subtleties of the right-wing propaganda they're fed everyday by Rush Limbaugh (in rural America, they have no choice but to listen to him, since local stations cater to the whim of the local bullies*). One valuable lesson about propaganda: it is subtle .. like the story of how to boil a frog by gradually raising the temperature of the pot so that the boilee doesn't realize what's happening.

* If yew don't air The Rush Show, I won't advertise my tractor bizness with yew, and yer radeo station'll go bankrupp!!

Why do some people remain in rural areas? I suspect that many start their lives there and see no reason to explore beyond the county line, since the Green Acres lifestyle is all they've ever known. Opportunities are limited in Rural America, and along with that often comes a limited educational system, where the people can be more easily propagandized into radical viewpoints. Others may have Seen The World, but find the slower lifestyle desirable. The fact that there are enough of these folks to have provided a base for the neocons for years is quite remarkable.

Now that they've been raised this way, is there a way to educate them out of this Moral Toilet they've been drawn into? After watching [Red State], the answer is "probably not". It reminds me of a 1986 book by David Shipler [Arab and Jew: wounded spirits in a promised land] that left me depressed with the knowledge that there is no way for those two sides to ever get along.