Ted Kennedy’s life and work has taught me how human decency and government can work to serve her people and not solely special interests.  Kennedy’s early endorsement, of then, Senator Barack Obama in January of last year was an example of generations coming together with a shared interest to form what I call a “grand alliance”.

The grand alliance is between Generation We and like-minded people from other generations.  In this alliance several groups are likely to play important roles.  One of which are Justice Seekers.  Justice Seekers, like Ted Kennedy, support the Millennials in their quest to redeem our national promise. These are the fair-minded citizens who are troubled by the large and growing gap between our stated ideals of democracy, freedom, and opportunity and the harsh reality of life in twenty-first century America.

You have heard me discuss how growing income in-equality, dwindling educational opportunity, lack of access to healthcare, and the increasing concentration of power in the hands of elites are all helping to undermine the traditional American values of fairness and equality. Millions of Americans are disturbed by these trends, and many are prepared to demand redress for these injustices.

Here are examples of some of the events and trends that have aroused the feelings of the justice seekers and that will mobilize them to support a movement for social and political change:

> The horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in which government indifference and incompetence combined with poverty and racism created a nightmare in which a great American city was nearly destroyed by a natural disaster whose worst effects could have been and should have been foreseen and forestalled.

> Corporate scandals, such as those involving Enron, WorldCom/MCI, Tyco, and Global Crossing, in which white-collar criminals lavishly and fraudulently enriched themselves and their cronies at the expense of customers, investors, and lower-level employees.

> The failure of our military to adequately equip, train, protect, and reward our men and women in uniform, even as we sent them into the line of fire in Iraq and Afghanistan for repeated tours of duty, and squandered billions in unaccounted funds paid to private contractors and Iraqi politicians.

> The transformation of our prisons into a vast system for social control, in which more than 2.3 million Americans—more than one in every hundred adults—are incarcerated, many of them charged with nonviolent offenses, such as drug abuse, for which therapeutic and remedial care would be far more effective and humane. Racial disparities are enormous: If you’re a Hispanic male, your chance of being in prison is 2.2 times greater than of a white male, and if you’re a Black male, your chance is almost 6 times as great.

> The increasing difficulties faced by young people who try to better their lot through higher education, caught between ever-growing tuition costs, ever-shrinking access to government grants and low-cost student loans, ever increasing mountains of debt, and ever-worsening job prospects.

Notice that none of these is a partisan issue. You don’t have to be a Democrat or a Republican to be outraged over the destruction of the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the obscene money-grubbing by the energy market manipulators at Enron or those who drove the price of oil to 140 dollars per barrel, or the disgraceful conditions in which wounded veterans are treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. All you need is a sense of fair play and a commitment to the idea that America should be better than this.  Millions of Americans who have that sense and that commitment are ready to become part of the grand alliance that will usher in a new progressive era in our national politics.

us. Invest some time and energy in learning about how the world works—and begin thinking about how to change it for everybody’s benefit.

Even as Millennials revel in the power of the Internet to connect with sources of knowledge anywhere in the world, many worry about the long-term impact that being flooded with data may have on their minds. In our focus groups, some spoke about the “numbing” effect of too much information—about how seeing floods, famine, and violence in far-off lands on the evening news night after night eventually causes the sympathetic spirit to shut down, leading people to retreat into their own interests. Others talked about feeling emotionally disconnected from human beings as electronic communication supersedesface-to-face or voice-to-voice dialogue.

These are real dangers and the inevitable downside of today’s miraculously powerful communications technologies. It’s up to Generation We to find ways to master these tools and make them serve human ends. Start exercising personal choice and self-discipline when it comes to your media diet. Turn off the umpteenth celebrity gossip show, the latest goofy video on YouTube, the newest fear-mongering email from some shadowy online source. Much of this is distraction media that is intentionally sensationalized to keep people from focusing on the real issues of the day and being able to seek out solutions. Look for sources of information and ideas that enrich, ennoble, and empower you—or create your own.

Just as a daily menu filled with junk food eventually causes physical illness, a media menu made up of mental rubbish will eventually leave you brain-dead and spiritually empty. Don’t let this happen to you. Think about what you take in