First thing she taught us was to CONTACT THEM!
Next time you bleat about government will never change - well when was the last time you contacted your locally elected representative? My guess is never, so why should they have your interests at heart? If the 1% are taught at high school to contact their representatives then they are doing so because that is the way things change.
If only the 1% and corporations become friends/friendly with politicians, then politicians will only listen to them. If however the factory in the politician's electorate is chatting about deregulating pollution controls and all the people who live there never complain, then eventually the politician will go along with the factory. If however 100,000 people will nag the politician about pollution then the politician will be less likely to listen to the factory owners and be more nervous about the constituents.
You may think its daunting to contact your politicians but nothing will change unless you talk to him/her - we all talk to them.
The RWNJs can mobilize and contact their politicians en masse and politicians respond to them because they do. Anyone remember Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction but one grandmother caused chaos by complaining cos she didn't know how to explain it to her grandson (yet there were ads for viagra during that very same superbowl).
If the RWNJs can mobilize about something as trivial as Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction we must mobilize about things that are much more important.
It will not be easy getting politicians to change their minds, but if we are determined and badger them they will change policy. I am not advocating violence, I am advocating pleasant repeated contact about those things that matter to you, healthcare reform, unemployment, food stamps, getting the rich to pay more taxes, improved education, fixing infrastructure, whatever is important to you.