The reason for that is that all media in the United States (at least the power houses that matter) is controlled by the government, whether directly or indirectly. The last of our defacto checks and balances is basically gone too.

Compound that with a good amount of people who are mostly comfortable in life, and yet get zero citizen based activism.

I am not american, but from the outside it doesn't look like the media (power houses) are controlled by the government. it more looks like the government and business interests are so closely aligned (and often personally contiguous) that there is no major disagreement between the media and the gov. please, i would be glad to be shown otherwise.

I agree with you about media. But I think lack of activism comes down to confusion. Similar to the age of the robber barons, when the American middle class just couldn't make sense of the monopolies and scandals that were forming.

"They knew that all these scandals were somehow a part of the enormous changes that were happening to American society. But they also knew that the new technologies and giant industries were bringing amazing benefits and transforming their world and the way they related to each other. Nobody seemed to be able to understand the true dimensions of what was happening."

From a recent (and very long) Adam Curtis article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/WHAT-THE-FLUCK

This should make US citizens angry, angry enough to go to Capitol Hill once a year to hustle representatives on a particular issue.

Example: Public funding of campaigns and limits to private funding is something that only engaged voters can push, because they won't stop feeding at the trough of corporate power voluntarily. (Free (corporate) speech vs. naked corruption.)