My whole life, my parents, my teachers and my grandparents told me, "work hard in school, go to college, and when you get out you'll get a good job that'll let you raise a family".

I did what they said.

Skipped French Lit, Communications and Interpretive Arts, and got a degree in Electrical Engineering. Graduated three years ago and I'm still working two part-time, service jobs while I apply for a dozen jobs a week.

My dad's a nerd. In the 1970s and 80s, he was one of the first computer programmers, he started off writing COBOL bank software and grew from there. Two years ago, his company outsourced its entire programming division to India, and while he learned Rails and C++ quickly, nobody wants to hire a 52-year-old programmer.

My granddad finished his hitch in the Army Corps of Engineers, where he trained as a machinist, and worked thirty-two years for the same company. Two years after he retired, the company he worked for got bought by a corporation, which got bought by a hedge fund, and all of a sudden they're saying the company's bankrupt and seeking a court order saying they no longer have to pay out their pensions.

So I'm working 56 hours a week for $25K /yr, Dad's wasting a career's worth of high-tech training making a website for the coffee shop I work at, and my Granddad can't afford his prescriptions.

We're pissed off because we bought into the American Dream, and the deal got sold out from under us to help some corporate holding company bump its stock up half a tick.

While we're trying to figure our way through this, we see a non-stop flow of media telling us we are the Bad Guy in any given social situation.