Actually, that's great, I like that you're asking questions.

I also note in this response and in another you made, that you're zeroing in on corruption and broken promises--which is kind of a shallow way to view politics and citizen involvement in civic life. (It's ok to be shallow about politics, but it will limit your perspective and your ability to do anything about your world.)

What do I mean by get involved? Couple of things I've done in the last few years:

Volunteer on a local political campaign. Don't just show up and ask for a task, talk to everyone you can, get to know them as people, make friends and make connections. You'll quickly discover that you see the same people again and again. Lots of people don't make political involvement a priority for whatever reason, so you'll see the same faces in a variety of contexts (supporting a candidate, supporting a cause, etc).

I say "local" because it's the best place to start. You'll have a lot of chances to talk to and get to know the candidate for office, and it's easy to get involved, depending on what you can bring to the table (skills, connections, etc).

(And it's kind of neat, if they win, and you've made a friend of them, to get to brag to your friends, "I'm going to go have coffee with my pal, State Rep Jones," and then you get to stay in touch with your politician who you helped get into office, and you find out what new pressures they're under to compromise...)

What else?

Go to civic groups, chamber groups, and association meetings, especially when politicians are going to give talks. Walk right up to them, bluster your way into a conversation, and just start talking with them. Everyone you meet, and I do mean everyone, ask them, "is there anyone else I should meet? I'm interested in x and y, and I'd love to talk to anyone who I can help advance these issues."

I've gotten connected with so many people at a variety of local government agencies this way. We sit down for coffee, they tell me what their agency is all about, I tell them what I'm doing and what's important to me, etc.

The best way to keep their attention is to frame whatever you want in terms of how it will benefit them: "Open-sourcing more of your agency's projects would be good for you, because of these benefits.." or "Providing an API to your agency's data would be good for you because it would let people like me build interfaces to make it more accessible to underrepresented groups X and Y.."

Now, if you're scoffing and thinking, "well hur hur so you got some small agency to sponsor open-source and open their data sets, that's not solving real problems," then you're right, my efforts haven't single-handedly gotten the U.S. out of the middle east, nor have they gotten single-payer health care instituted as a national policy.

But do these matter to me, as a fan of free software and open access to data, and everyone else like me? You bet.

And you know what? It doesn't stop here. Every year I get to know more people, and every year more people call me up out of the blue to pick my brain about, what do you think, should we do this? Should this be a policy?

Where's it all going? What's it going to look like for me in 10 years? I dunno, but it's exciting.

If you think it's all pointless, good, fine, stay home. I don't really care what you do--and if that's your attitude, it's better that you stay home and remain uninvolved.