The great country of Austria or why change will not happen here

As you may have known from my Shelfari on the right, I'm reading Valerie Plame's book about her being outed as a CIA officer. The book really got me thinking if it would ever be possible for such a thing to happen in Austria and I came to the conclusion that no, it really isn't.

We don't really have an Intelligence Service comparable to any IS of the States -that's how unimportant we are. We have only one Intelligence Service that can be taken seriously. They are part of the military which is a joke by itself. They are responsible for things happening abroad and apparently were (maybe still are) THE Intelligence Service to talk to when it comes to questions on the Balkan area. BUT here, no one gives a damn. Most Austrian citizens wouldn't even know the name of our IS (btw they don't even have a website, that's how secret they are!) let alone be interested in what they are doing.
I think - apart from it maybe being illegal to out a secret agent - no journalist would think twice about publishing the name of an agent if they had one, they simply wouldn't because no one wants to read a boring thing like that.

I could go on giving you example of how no one cares about Intelligence in Austria, but where I really wanna go with it is the level of political resignation here. There is a lot going on with the elections in September and all, but people are generally uninformed, me thinks.
I get the feeling that people only care about politics - and instantly become experts on the matter - in times of elections. I admit that happens quite often given the fact that we seem to have quite an instable government that can't keep it together for the 4 years of their legislative period (thank god they decided that with the beginning of the next, the legislative period will be 5 years). People love to complain though. Austria harbors the best complainers worldwide, we do nothing but.
Given the general sentiment of complaining about how bad it all is and that the parties really can't govern properly, I don't understand why people still vote for the same two or three big parties. Wouldn't it be logical to say, "It seems that these guys couldn't get it right for 60 years, maybe we should give the small parties a chance?". No, it doesn't happen, because that would mean change and a chance that everything might turn out for the better and who can guarantee that people will still be able to complain?

I'm thrilled to see a new party (LIF) on the ballot. It was there before (in the 90ies) but it's back again bringing fresh blood into the election "campaign". I'm curious to see how many votes will be taken from the other relatively small left wing party (Greens) and how many will vote for the new party only because they don't wanna vote for the same old big ones...My guess is the LIF will cause trouble for the Greens and no one will be in a position powerful enough for a strong opposition.

I'd really love to see this country change and open up and make step into a modern future, but I'm too frustrated and too disillusioned to really believe that can happen. Because if you get honest answers from Austrians, THE DON'T GIVE A DAMN about anything if it doesn't directly concern them.

My guess is, that being a neutral country fed the Austrian tradition of looking the other way with a concerned face. "We can't do anything, our hands are tied because we are a neutral country, sorry!" Over time this has trickled down from high ranking politicians to the average joe on the streets. People will not help you or do anything to improve their situation, because they don't care if they are not the victim and when they are they will complain a bit to vent. They are bored with foreign politics because we are neutral and nothing will happen to us anyway. They are not the victim, they don't care. They are bored with Austrian politics because politicians are all liars no matter which party they're from, what can we do anyway, let's whine and complain a bit.
Austrians are passive, we didn't even have a revolution back in the days. It even seems that Enlightenment is a strange concept to some - it's too risky, let's not think for ourselves and demand a change for better or for worse.