It's easy to throw your hands up and blame everyone else for the ills of the world, much harder to get out there and try to change it. The attitude that there is nothing left for us to do (ie, we're powerless in the face of the corporate political apparatus) is what has gotten us to where we are now.
If you care about what you're leaving to the next generation, get out there and do something about it. If a relatively modest fraction of our population would do that (for example, see Tea Party--although I loth what they've done), things could change.
Great post, by the way. Living in Baltimore in the early 90s and experiencing some of the things I saw on Simon's "The Wire" really convinced me that TV can be a force for good. One of the best TV series ever.
Mike