Democracy: from Greek demokratia, from demos ‘the people’ + -kratia ‘power, rule.’

In my Sunday post on Bill Ayers, jane smithie made this observation:

i feel like the whole reason we are in the mess we are in is because people dont care, and are too scared to protest if they do [care].

So, why don't we protest the way we should? Some say it's a combination of soul-crushing 60s assassination and suppression, the Me generation, and the convenience of contemporary armchair digital activism (e.g. email forwards and blogs).  Those are valid points, but I think the biggest problem is that Americans work too many hours, commute too many miles, bring their kids to too many activities, and have a precious too few vacation days.

Why is it that we see places like France, a country with a 36 hour work-week and where everyone gets a mandatory five weeks vacation, erupt annually in social protest and civil disobedience while in America we're lucky most times to get a few hundred dedicated souls to even protest the most reprehensible government actions? I say because Americans lack the time and energy.

Protests in America have been losing prestige and efficacy since the 1960s, about the same time Americans started working longer hours for less pay. The average American have less time and energy to hit the streets and fight and protests themselves are more and more seen as a losing cause.  But in a country requiring significantly fewer hours for work, picketing and marching all of a sudden doesn't seem like such a big sacrifice. And when more people have the ability to protest and demonstrate, the protests gain more power to produce the change desired. 

The question is cui bono? Who really benefits from keeping Americans occupied with work and commuting so many hours per week ? What is the real benefit of denying people vacation time?  It's more then just dollars, cents and productivity.

More free time means more time for the masses to exercise actual democracy as it was intended, giving the people the power to rule.