Like you, I ignored politics because I knew it would only piss me off.
I started reading about politics and economics (fairly voraciously) about 2 to 3 years ago when the "shi.t hit the fan", mainly to try to figure out which country provided future options. My reading (not of MSM) provided me with some insight, but it's hard to trust any source of info.
I feel most comfortable with takes from Austrian Economists however.
A cursory understanding of AE is all you need (imo) to easily see the corruption and joke that our government truly is. I feel it's better to try to be educated than in the dark, even if your ability to affect much change is limited. Fact is, the more people that become educated, the better the chance for change.
I am not very optimistic about even 10% of the population taking any time whatsoever to become educated, however. My experience is that the vast majority of people prefer to be clueless and would rather watch "Real housewives of...." or whatever. Because of this, it's fairly easy for the media to get most people to swallow whatever they put out there with sound bytes and for Obamass to distract us with his "kick someone's ass" statements.
I can't relate to collecting a dime from the gov't. I would literally rather die.
If interested, this book (free online here....
http://jim.com/econ/ ) is a great intro to AE. It's written in a wonderful manner, imo. The author doesn't try to impress you with big words, but instead tries to allow you to understand his thought process.
Here is a good site for AE -
http://mises.org/