Dear Mr. President-Elect,

On November 4, I voted for you, and that night I stood with a hundred other young, well-dressed and drunk American voters and watched your acceptance speech, and the moment all felt like a good dream, that for one of the first times I can remember, it felt like the good guys had won. You, like us, seem to recognize that the system is broken, that the people elected to lead should not be nefarious and selfish but one of the people, working to serve their needs.
So now, a few weeks later, all anyone can talk about is the economy and how everything's ruined and how we should be stocking up on food and wait for the day that our money's worth nothing and take our place in the bread line.

I graduated from college in May, and learned nothing if not that every way in which the world is currently operating is wrong. So, reluctant to join this destructive "work force" that kills everyone who is in it, (I believe that I am alive and would like to stay that way) I have taken a menial position that I am much too smart for. It requires none of the skills that I have, bores me to tears and insults my dignity, but at least I'm not pushing papers for some soul-sucking corporation by and for the living dead. However, I am currently living well below the poverty line. I can barely afford to pay my bills now (although these do not even include car payments/insurance, expensive habits or health insurance) and in less than a month, my first college loan payment is due. All I want to do is work in a socially/environmentally progressive organization that is making valid steps toward effective change in the world. However, when the economy is bad, organizations like these are the first to tighten their belts, although the unsustainable, top-heavy economy itself is the reason why such organizations toward re-shaping our country and world are needed.

So let's recap. I need to join the very world I learned is wrong just to be able to pay for my having learned this. For me to do this is giving up all that I have, is cashing in my integrity and faith in the world, is relinquishing the belief that the world allows for progress and compassion and the capabilities of the human heart.I'm living in poverty because I care too much about the other people and things in this world to take a 40k/year job at a faceless corporation and actually buy some furniture and health insurance. Apparently the abilities of thinking and feeling have no place in the "real world," in America, but that's all I know how to do. America is currently crushing its own children; we are buckling under the weight of its reckless corporate lust, and we are scared it does not care about us, that it will hear our screams, shrug its shoulders and leave us for dead.

So, Mr. Obama, I, and millions of others like me, gave you our vote and our faith. How will you save us?

Sincerely,

America's Urban 20-Somethings