Unfortunately this is the reality, and it seems naive to think any solution will be found from within the system (voting, etc). Politics prevent any true change but in the end its the people's fault, really. It's not like there isn't hard information about how truly fucked up the entire system is, and how corrupt it has become: books, documentaries, and now the internet make it easier than ever to educate yourself. But to do that, you'd have to actually be curious about something other than what's on prime time tonight.
Tangent BS 'movements' like "Yes We Can" and the Tea Baggers distract that crucial middle that ride the fence between political apathy and taking action. They don't end up contributing to any real change but tire themselves out with the nonsense, bigotry, finger-pointing and wishful thinking of their chosen "movement". What a joke!
Americans are just too god damned lazy and stupid, and that's because we are all overfed, navel-gazing, history and intellectual hating douche bags with too many LCD TVs and strip malls to bury ourselves under (willingly). No one wants to look at their own self and feel responsible, when they can just get off on being pissed vicariously through Glenn Beck-type talk shows.
Until things get really bad and Americans can no longer afford the luxuries that distract them and face a reality hard enough that they realize that this whole system serves a very elite few, it will continue exactly how it is.
One might think this time isn't far off. The middle class is shrinking. Generational advancements in wealth and social status are being reversed.
But still, people fight tax increases that really only effect a small, very rich, portion of society--why? Because they think that they could be a millionaire in a few years! Maybe they can, but not all 300+ million of them will be. A very small, hard working percentage will. Not your average voter. All proof the myth remains stronger than ever.
On top of this everyone has learned to be satisfied with what they can achieve--two cars, a home (at least in the past), some amount of cash for discretionary spending every year, maybe a vacation. That they have to work like drones and waste the large part of their lives in careers they hate is just accepted. We can't imagine a world that is otherwise. We feel lucky to break into the six digits income, when meanwhile the true rich, the elite families that control true wealth, they get to get richer as the poor and middle class fuel their own fantasies by paying them for the privilege.
Serfdom, only not as shitty as it was back in the day. At least we get 80+ channels of cable television and internet porn
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... ok i'll stop ranting now :P