The have-nots are normally on the front lines of protest, feeling disenfranchised when government ignores their interests. But when those who have more are yelling loudest, change is likely in the air.

Video clips of frustrated Americans, many of them white and reasonably well off, shouting at their representatives over the proposal to institute some form of national health care has been inundating American cable news over the last few weeks.

The Hondurans behind the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya last month plotted their overthrow in the salons of the country’s more comfortable homes. They were worried about the populist path that President Zelaya was pursuing, Ginger Thompson reported in the Times.

Armida Villela de Lopez Contreras, a lawyer and former vice president, helped organize the protests that led to tens of thousands marching on Congress.

“The poor have always protested, and the rich always speak their minds, but the middle class never protested until now,” Ms. Lopez Contreras told Ms. Thompson. “It was as if Honduras woke up.”

The normally docile Japanese rural voter is losing faith, tired of government corruption and an economy mired in a slump. Though they have supported Liberal Democrats for office in every election except one in the last 55 years, Martin Fackler reported in The Times, polls show the party is heading for a humiliating loss in national elections on August 30.

“The countryside is angry,” said Takayuki Miyauchi, 67, a retired postmaster, told Mr. Fackler. “We want anyone but the Liberal Democratic Party.”

The proposal to overhaul the American health care system seemed to awaken a deep well of anger among Republicans, now feeling left out of a government their party controlled for many years. There were noisy demonstrations that led to fistfights, arrests and hospitalizations, The Times reported.

“This is about dismantling this country,” Katy Abram, 35, shouted at Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, in an exchange reported by The Times’s Ian Urbina and Katharine Q. Seelye. “We don’t want this country to turn into Russia.”

This method of “debating” may be seen as a path back to power.

“This isn’t just about health care,” Carolyn Doric of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told Mr. Urbina and Ms. Seelye. “It’s about power and a means to regain political power.”

Perhaps even more detrimental to democracy than anger is apathy. That was the sentiment among many educated Afghans as the presidential vote on Thursday approached, Hassana Sherjan wrote in an essay in The Times.

Ms. Sherjan, who is the director of Aid Afghanistan for Education, said one of her colleagues had discussed the election with 10 friends and the group decided not to vote. Their complaints include a dissatisfaction with the candidates, the lack of security and the role of foreign aid groups. “The election is a mere formality,” Ms. Sherjan’s colleague said.

But when it comes to democracy, screaming at lawmakers is healthier than giving up on them.

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