Where's My Social Revolution?

During my commute to... (( le sigh ))... work today I had a little time to think, seeing as how I was stuck behind a bus AND a fish delivery van going side-by-side down Wilshire Blvd. at about 25 MPH. Bastards...
   Anyway, I thought about all my friends who are still 'between assignments,' and older workers displaced by the sour economy, and the kids fresh out of college hoping to enter the workforce but finding doors shut in their faces. And I got to wondering
   Where is the anger? Where is the social unrest? Where is the agitation and demonstrating and yelling and demanding? What happened to us?
   I know when I was unemployed - as little as a week ago - I didn't have the first thought that I might go out and make my displeasure understood to those in power. Just didn't occur to me. And that bothers me now that I have a job, as temporary as it might be. Why? Why did I just sit back let it happen? And why are 15% of us still standing there like a punch-drunk boxer waiting to get another one on the chin? Why aren't they - we - out there doing something?
   Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses, but I think the real opiate is the 40+ hour workweek, the 9-to-5 job that slowly becomes 7-to-6. The Romans gave their populace bread and circuses - kept 'em fed and entertained so that they wouldn't realize that social change was just one good riot away.
   Same thing here, for the past 20 years or more. Pay your people well enough that they'll put up with the garbage job you're having them do, which also keeps them tired enough that they won't look for work somewhere else, and have no energy to do other things. Like, say, keep informed about political matters, or vote, or go to local government meetings. Seems like corporate jobs that let people make a living are keeping them from living their lives properly.
   You might say I'm just cranky and reading too much into it, but during the Great Depression unemployment was above 10% for years and the government was worried about civil unrest. That's why FDR put all those people to work. We've been over 10% unemployment for quite a while during this depression, and if I were the government, I'd be concerned.
   Just saying...

COMMUTE: there - 35 minutes back - 40 minutes to fencing lesson
CONTRACT COUNTDOWN: 82 days