Power to the powerless?

 I read something by Sherrilyn Ifill - who I respect -in which she emphasizes that those who say we can do nothing are wrong, and that we have the power to mobilize. Meaning, to vote.

I respect the idea, but I want to ask about that power. I want to ask: what power? I think we had that power after Red Lake, we had that power after Sandy Hook, we had that power after Newtown, we had that power after Virginia Tech... so why was the power massively unused? These statements about "our" power become, after a while, disincentives, if all that supposed "power" ends up in the hands of representatives of our will who really do nothing, except ask every election year for donations and votes. The power that Dr. King had, which had to be exercized for a decade, was not in votes, but in civil disobedience and organizing to defy the powers that be. We have definitely lost that - what, after all, would happen to our credit rating? We are powerlessly powerful. The most powerful are so isolated from the rest of us that they view "doing something" as a sort of charity case, breadcrumbs for the peasants. Power doesn't come out of saying that we have power. It comes, perhaps, when we recognize our powerlessness and question the conditions that have caused it.