Agreed about the politics. After my military service career, I entered the municipal (city, village, township) line of work to see if I could make a difference in civilian life. After 25 years of service to local residents, property owners and the like, I have found the biggest issues are two fold. Media and apathy.
The media seems to be focused on the big government, when it's the local city/county government that is going to put another cop in the budget or raise your property taxes. When was the last time you saw a local school board meeting on the news?
Sadly, the number of people that turn out to a city/county meeting are few and far between. I've worked in cities with populations over 500,000 and in ones that have 50,000 and the number of people that come to speak out, let alone even attend, are a mere handful.
In the midst of it all, are what we call public servants. These are the men and women that protect you from the squad car, read your water meter, fix your road, or make developers live up to local regulations. The majority of them really do try to do a good job on the public dollar.
However, the qualifications for being elected are still pretty slim. You must be at least 18, a resident of the local city/county for a period of time and .....get the most votes. That's it. No prior experience necessary in running a multimillion dollar public corporation or in local policy making.
So what's the answer? Find out who's running in the next school board election, or city council position and find out what they stand for. That's how real change happens...
Sorry for the rambling... I got dumped by a group of corupt politicians a while back and still feel the sting.