Day 246- Labor Day

Dear Mr. President,

Thanks for declaring Monday Labor Day. I know you didn't make up the Holiday, and the Presidential Proclamation is almost entirely ceremonial. But thank you. You might think that, as a member of America's workforce, I appreciate the holiday you've proclaimed for us. I guess the part of me that values symbolism and whimsy does, sort of. The rest of me just remembers that this is pushing back payday an extra 24 hours since the payroll department and the bank all have a day off. Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge my cubicle-bound brethren their 3-day weekend; just because I am a part-time employee and not qualified for a paid holiday doesn't mean every one else shouldn't have a special weekend. My real problem with Labor Day is that it reminds me how truly sad the current state of the American worker actually is.

A study conducted in 2007 found that the US is the only country out of the top 21 richest that does not require by law paid vacation time for workers.

As a result, 1 in 4 U.S. workers do not receive any paid vacation or paid holidays. The lack of paid vacation and paid holidays in the U.S. is particularly acute for lower-wage and part-time workers, and for employees of small businesses.

I'm not an expert or anything, but if we all had paid time off, wouldn't we have more time to stay healthy, recover from illness or injury, connect with our families, raise our children, travel, shop, learn, and be creative? I think most people need more of most of those things in their lives and our society would definitely benefit from more of these activities. Also, if workers were mandated paid time off, more workers would be needed to do the same amount of work and wouldn't that lower unemployment?

I do understand that if the Federal Government can't secure health insurance for every American worker, paid time off might be a fantastic stretch of the imagination. While I have had jobs with paid vacations, this was a benefit only applicable to select "full-time" employees, even when many designated "part-time" worked as many or more hours. Starbucks is the notable exception to this and I think their entire benefit package for part-time workers is truly one of the most commendable examples from an American company of its size. I think that Starbucks grasps something that more companies might benefit from understanding: employees are often the best customers. Keeping employees healthy and sane and comfortable benefits the employer, and it benefits society as a whole.

Maybe it's just my resentment at not getting a three day weekend. Maybe asking for paid time off is unforgivably socialist of me in a time when you're getting called much worse for doing far less. I am grateful for the victories secured by workers of this country and they are worth remembering. But, in a time when the desperation and fear of so many workers just barely scraping by is exploited to increase the profit margins and bonuses of the rich executives, when so many of us lack health insurance or even paid sick time and are constantly told to just feel lucky we have jobs at all, maybe asking us to celebrate on Monday is asking too much.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 230-Cars and ditches, or how I beat a metaphor to death

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Dear Mr. President,

As the last of the combat troops were pulled out of Iraq today I thought about the night the war began. I was driving home from coffee with a friend when I heard the news, still a junior in high school. A friend and I had been drinking chai tea at Starbucks, an activity that felt vaguely subversive in itself as the chain had opened only recently in our small town, and my father still didn't approve of us spending so much time there. I was too young to vote, but still, I felt responsible for what was happening. For not doing more to stop it. My best friend had gone to anti-war marches in Seattle- what if I had gone, too? Would it have made a difference? I'd had this belief my entire life that my opinion mattered, by virtue of being an American. A naive faith in the power of Democracy to ensure that my country would always act with good intentions. So much of that youthful hope was dead by the time I arrived home. Suddenly, instead of being an empowering, inclusive force for goodness and wisdom and justice, our government seemed hostile, unyielding and frightening. I don't know if my government changed that night or if I did. Lately I've heard you refer to the country as a car the Republicans drove into a ditch; for me, that was the night we lost control.

What I felt today seeing Operation Iraqi Freedom end was not happiness. It's what you feel when you've gotten the car out of the ditch and surveyed the damage. Grief. Anger. Self-reproach. Relief. I'm grieving for the lives ruined by this war- the lives lost, the families broken, the maimed and traumatized and homeless and broken on all sides. I'm angry that this was done in my name, under my flag, associating me with it forever. Still, I wonder, could I have helped? Could I have stopped it or made it less awful even for one person if I had been more involved? This is not a moment of joy, this is not a victory for the left. A mistake of this magnitude cannot be corrected, it can only be prevented from getting any worse.

When you mention this car and ditch metaphor what you are asking is for Americans to understand that the reason your legislative victories and accomplishments don't feel like progress is because they aren't. We haven't made any progress because you've been trying to repair the damage. Real progress, you contend, will only begin once the repairs are complete and we can drive again. The first 3 or 4 times I heard you use this analogy I admit, I rolled my eyes and brushed it aside as more talking-point nonsense. But today that all changed. In my personal life, I've been waiting for a long time for progress. I've been doing the hard work that has to be done and feeling like I'm in the same place I left off. Today I realized this is because I've been trying to make repairs. I've just gotten the car running again. I haven't gone anywhere, but it's ok, because at least it's fixed. I'm in the same place, but I'm not the same person. And all I've got ahead of me for miles and miles is road.

This war might be over, but you've still got a difficult job ahead. I think I was losing faith in you, for a while. I didn't like that feeling and, even if it turns out to be misguided, I'm glad to feel hopeful again. I'm sorry I had to feel it on a small, personal scale to understand and appreciate what you were saying. It hasn't been easy, and it isn't going to be for a long time. I think that you've got an important message, Mr. President, but your greatest challenge is returning a sense of control (and the responsibility that goes along with it) to people disillusioned by so many years feeling like we can't make a difference. Like we don't have the wheel. Finding a way to involve and empower the people of this country (to do more than just show up on election day) is the only way forward if your Presidency is ever going to be about more than just cleaning up your predecessor's crash sites.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 170- Irresponsible

Dear Mr. President,

In my life, I've been helped a long by a number of friends, given opportunities, supported and mentored to achieve many of the things I have. I've also had to make some difficult decisions, to learn to rely on my own instincts. It's ironic that some of the people who have tried the hardest to shape my life have also often avised me to stand up for myself, to stop allowing people to walk all over me. After 24 years, I still haven't found a balance. I often acquiesce when I know I ought to stand firm; or obstinately refuse to compromise, even when I should know better. Today I had to act on instinct, to make a major life decision based on little more than faith in my own instincts. It will likely cost me the support of a number of people I respect and care for, but, when it comes down to it, I have to trust my intuition.

What is it about life as the lowest rung in a huge corporation that seems to lend itself so easily to comparison with my relationship to the powers that govern this country? I felt just as powerless under Howard Schultz as I did under President Bush, or even your own administration. At work, this is understandable; my relative significance to Mr. Schultz could not be smaller. And, ironically, while I represented the face of his company to the public I served, I had little role in making any decisions about the company (and was paid very little.) In America, while my vote may count as much as Mr. Schultz's, his ability to buy access to the people in power, to control the destinies of enough voters to matter more to any politician than nameless, inconsequential me, my own influence is dwarfed by comparison. I'm going to go out on a limb and suppose that, were he to write you a letter, Mr. President, he'd get more than a form response.

Was it irresponsible of me to leave my job today? I'm not sure. I don't think I'll ever feel good about the way I had to make this choice. Will I gain more significance working for an independent store, or by writing you 365 letters? Almost certainly not. But I will wield a greater amount of control over my own daily life and destiny. In a world divided by those who have power and those who will live without ever glimpsing it, I suppose this is all I can ask for.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 163

Dear Mr. President,

Several Januaries ago, I was living in Washington DC, and I'd just begun training as a barista in my bookstore's cafe. Sometime during the week-long training process, the dress code's exclusion of pinstripe pants, the same actions and combinations of ingredients repeated drink after drink after drink, even the words we were taught to say started to bother me. I sat outside the store on my lunch break, ignoring the light snow, and cried with despair. I was 21, and convinced that, because I was not in school for the first time in my life, I was doomed to amount to nothing, that my life was broken beyond repair. My boss sat outside with me and asked me what it was in life that I wanted. He told me (perhaps in an attempt to boost my self-esteem and perhaps because he meant it) that I was too smart to be serving coffee, that I wasn't allowed to give up on my potential yet.

I'm 24 now, and I still serve coffee. I'm going back to school this fall, and, while I'm terrified that I'm no longer smart enough or somehow too old to be back in a University, I would not be doing it if it weren't for this belief that I have the potential to be more. That serving coffee is not my destiny. I want to be useful to people, to Do Good and to matter in ways I can't really articulate but I know can never be realized if I don't finish my education. I'm afraid that this is arrogant, that I might do a lot worse than to serve coffee and that I should not imagine myself to be better than any job, no matter how awful the hours or silly the dress code or mindless the work. I'm afraid that I will only disappoint myself if I try for more. Maybe my destiny is just as ordinary as I am now, and I should make the most of it.

I could not do this without the legislation you've passed to make higher education more accessible to people like me, and for that I cannot tell you how grateful I am. I think that the importance of education cannot be overstated, and I am so glad that my government recognizes this. You can't give me the answers, you can't give me direction or purpose or self satisfaction, but you can and have given me the assurance of knowing that the education I need to escape is possible, even for some one of my limited economic means.

I look back on the person I was, years ago, and I see that I have grown up enough to believe in second chances; that I am not so young as to think that 24 is too old to start over. I'm still plagued by the same fears and the same arrogance and the same self-doubt, but at least I have enough hope to try and improve my situation. I have had too much help from too many teachers and mentors and friends along the way to ever imagine I am doing this alone, and I know that it is their faith, more than anything, which has given me the audacity to try again. I hope that, when I am much older and, hopefully, wiser, I can look back at this summer and my restlessness and see that it was all for the best, that my growing out of my situation in life will lead to greater happiness for me and greater usefulness to our society. I dare to imagine that is exactly what you had in mind.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 154- The Millennials

Dear Mr. President,

I was pleasantly surprised to learn tonight that my generation has a name. We are, apparently, the Millennials. (I don't recall being asked for input when this name was chosen. I doubt I'd have approved, but I suppose it's better than "Generation Y") Timothy Egan is calling on us to "save" our country from the boomers. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Egan, and I did find it surprising to learn that more 18-29 year olds voted in 2008 than those over 65. This has clearly not escaped the notice of Organizing For America, which almost daily contacts me asking for participation or support. I am comforted by this. Demographics are on my side, as the ruling class of this country grows (slowly) younger, my hope is that things will (slowly) improve. I think Egan's points are well-taken; my generation's views on gay rights, environmental issues and the wars launched under President Bush may have been ahead of our time and now widely accepted. However, our participation has done little to fundamentally change the system or the way we ourselves are perceived by those in power. (Evidenced even here, by Egan's quip about our ability to leave our facebook pages long enough to elect you, forgetting, perhaps, the role that social networking and blogs played in that election.)

This thought strikes me most often when I am asked about my tattoos. I have seven, and will soon have eight. According to a recent post on the freakonomics blog, 36 percent of 18-25 year olds, and 40 percent of 26-40 year olds have tattoos. When people express their concern that the body art I have no will be detrimental to my professional success, I like to consider this statistic. I currently have a job where, despite making less than $10/hour and having little to no consequence in society, I have to keep my tattoos covered up. I respect that, as my employer, this company can make me wear whatever it pleases. I do not generally find that my tattoos affect my ability to make coffee, or my customer's enjoyment of said coffee. While I do think that my tattoos say something about me as a person, I don't think that having tattoos in general does. I reject the notion that they make me less professional or respectable, and that is because I respect myself (and my professionalism) more than I care for the opinions of those who would judge me on what they see. (Arrogance? Perhaps. I'll call it self-assurance and be quite content to keep it. ) My generation's willingness to accept a person for what is on the inside may largely be attributed to the often-faceless modes of interaction we have with one another online, and helps us to get past the kind of appearance-based prejudices that still hinder our parents.

But my generation has our faults, too. We often mistake awareness for action; blogging about something or updating our facebook status to support a cause is fine and good, but we vote most effectively with our dollar, and too many of us forget our idealism once we have to put money on it. Our demographic being among the most targeted by advertisers, we ought to have a greater impact on the policies of those companies whose products we consume than we do our government. I have many friends who are game for any kind of political discussion or debate, but who grow defensive and angry when their own purchasing decisions are called into question. If we're really going to steer this country in a better direction than our parents, we have to put our money where our well-intentioned tweets are.

I respect your and OFA's efforts to engage us; I can offer my personal pledge to do my part to help elect progressive candidates in 2010. But beyond voting, beyond organizing voting efforts, my generation has to do more. Egan, and OFA, are not asking us to save the country with our progressive vision, they're asking us to do so by electing the last generation of progressives. To show up on election day, and then to let the grown-ups take things from there. I think it's time that more of us ran for local, state and federal office ourselves; that we begin shaping our destinies through direct participation and not just by voting.

Finally, I'd like to acknowledge the death of one Millennial, Turkish-American Furkan Dogan, who, at 19, was killed on the Mavi Marmara, attempting to do bring hope and aid to the people of Gaza. His death ought to remind all of us, young and old, to honor those giving their lives for justice. If we had more elected officials willing to demonstrate this kind of courage, perhaps the youth of this nation would not be called upon to do it for them.

And now, I return to my mindless social networking. See you on Election Day.

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey

Day 144- Green, Pink and (Red)

Dear Mr. President,

Twice in the last two days I've encountered the term "greenwashing," a concept with which I was previously unfamiliar. Greenwashing, the practice of a company promoting false or exaggerated environmental claims in order to increase profits, can also be applied to other causes exploited for corporate game; KFC has recently been accused of pinkwashing, while (Red)washing charges have been leveled at Gap and Apple. My own employer is often accused of such practices, which is the context in which I first learned this term.

I'm struggling with this. I don't like the idea of exploiting consumer idealism for profit; my last employer did this on a regular basis, on a much smaller scale. We'd often be told to organize book drives for local charities, in order to increase the number of books (or toys) our customers purchased. However, we would not accept donations that customers brought in or purchased elsewhere. Every time I'd head complaints about this, however, I'd have to ask, do the children receiving these donations care if the company sending them had ulterior motives? Also, a struggling company is always going to try to convince customers to spend more; if they can't appeal to anything but a customer's charitable instincts, doesn't that do more good than finding a way to convince them to spend more on themselves?

When it comes to campaigns like product (Red), detractors claim that marketing the trendiness or sex appeal of social causes does more to increase the profits for the corporations, than it does for the charities they partner with. This criticism seems foolish; Bono's entire pitch for corporations participating in (Red) is based on the idea that participating in the fight against AIDS can help businesses. If these companies aren't donating enough of their profits for the satisfaction of some critics, boycotting these products isn't likely to encourage them to donate more. I think that any money generated by such campaigns is better than no money at all; it's impossible to gauge how much awareness this creates, as well. Will a consumer who has spent a little more for a product that donates to a social cause feel that they've done enough, and stop donating, or feel good, and donate more in order to continue feeling good? What is the harm in encouraging our consumption to be directed in ways that are, even marginally, mitigating to the damage our way of life does to the earth and the developing world?

Of course, there are other examples of harmful practices that are cloaked in claims of corporate responsibility. KFC's partnership to help breast cancer research, for example, encourages behavior that probably leads to breast cancer, (and is, inarguably, unhealthy.) BP's "Beyond Petroleum" ad campaign was deceitful, at best, even before the oil spill. And corporations aren't the only ones guilty of this; Israel's 60-year anniversary spawned an ad campaign to encourage tourism with the unconscionably insensitive slogan "No one belongs here more than you." When advertising is so disingenuous that it actively encourages purchases or behavior that is outright harmful to the buyer or to others, especially when it is done in the name of charity, conservation or any good cause, I think it crosses the line.

What would you say, Mr. President? Would you rather Americans bought fair-trade, shade-grown coffee from Starbucks and product (red) shirts from Gap, or that we saved our money, purchased less, and donated to these causes directly? Do we have to bring down corporations for their harmful practices, or pressure them, through our spending, to change their ways? Is a good deed less "good" if it is done for selfish reasons?

Respectfully yours,

Kelsey