How come there are so many people in this country that are so totally uninvolved with issues and things going on around them?

I am a member of several mediation organizations and soon to be on the board of my homeowners group. In fact, I just got back from an annual meeting of the HOA group and we didn't even have a quorum of people there so that we could vote on anything. And that's after all owners were sent a proxy form to fill out (simple, easy fill out) with a SASE to return it in so that if they chose to not attend, the board could place a vote for them.

When I send out invitations to our monthly mediation meetings and ask for an RSVP so that we can estimate the amount of food to purchase for our "light dinner," I usually get about 20 RSVPs and about 40 or 50 people actually show up! It's maddening when all they had to do to RSVP was to hit the reply button on their computer and say "yes, I'm coming."

Is this just bad manners, or do people not want to commit to stuff or what?

My observation is that it's the busy people that continually do all the work in organizations and groups I'm involved with.

Has it always been this way? Will it always be this way? Should I just deal with it?