How do we ordinary people build a genuine democracy when all the sizeable political parties AND the mass media have been bought out by corporate lobbyists, thereby depriving us of meaningful choices at the polls?

I don't even see how it's possible to break that ruling (multi)party system, except through revolution....and I don't see much possibility of a revolution happening here or in the USA. People aren't desperate enough here yet to stage a revolution, and the police and military forces that would be brought against people if they ever tried one would kill and imprison one hell of a lot of people.

You can't generally succeed in that sort of thing until the soldiers themselves rebel and join the people in overthrowing the system. That happened in Russia in 1917. I can't see it happening here.