As for apathetic people I'm not sure where you get that. I was able to find a clip that shook me a bit as a freedom loving American. It was during the protests in Iran where a woman openly cries out for help against her oppressive government's actions. Watch it and tell me you consider her and those like her apathetic.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/cnn-interviews-ir...
As emotional as that is, I feel powerless and sad that there is nothing I could do, or expect my government to do. The issue in Iran is political, and it's something that has to be worked out by the Iranian people themselves, possibly like Americans worked it out with the oppressive British government during the Revolutionary War. However, as I've explained above, I don't see that as improving the condition unless the result of any revolt is a constitution being drawn up, as ours was, which is designed to protect citizens' rights and freedoms.
What you're forgetting is 99.9999% of all discussion ever has been banal. The only difference is that Google now indexes some of it. The other 0.0001% is what changes the world.
And Google indexes that now, too.