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This is for all the disaffected youth.

You know who you are. You belong to that lamented generation that gets its news from the Daily Show. You don’t read the papers much or watch your parents’ evening news.

You don’t vote. You might not even be sure exactly what the difference between a Democrat and a Republican is. You hear the media making a ruckus for months prior to the presidential election and feel hopelessly out of the loop.

Or maybe you do vote. But you feel like you’re voting for the lesser of two evils, and you find it hard to get really enthused about the whole process.

They call you apathetic.

I can’t say I blame you. I’ll be voting in November, but I can hardly blame anyone else for not seeing the point.

Look at the choices. This fall, voters will choose between two viable contenders for president: a) a white man from a powerful family and corporate money or b) a white man from a powerful family and corporate money.

OK, they do take different positions on some very important issues. During the primaries, candidates even speak of radical change, but when the general election rolls around, they suddenly veer as close to the middle as possible. (I would contend that “the middle” of U.S. politics isn’t the middle of anything, but perhaps that’s a topic best saved for another day.)

November will come and go, and while the president-elect will have some big decisions to make, the basic structure of our society in the United States and in the world at large will stay about the same. There will still be an enormous gap in this country, not to mention in the world, between the few people who have millions of dollars and the many people not quite making enough to get by. Corporations will overwork the masses in this country and abroad, then turn around and sell them the product of their own hard work at a profit.

They will keep getting richer, and despite the popular mythology that you and I can become CEOs of major global corporations if we just work hard enough, we won’t. From the moment I was born into my perfectly average family, one thing was certain: I would never stand a real chance of becoming president.

There will still be crime, violence, hatred and bitterness. Grandmothers will still cut their pills in half.

The vote in November isn’t going to change all that.

The disaffected youth know this. It’s not that they don’t care about their well-being. It’s not that they don’t want to improve their quality of life. They just don’t see voting as a very effective way to change the fundamental problems in our society.

And perhaps they turn to Jon Stewart rather than the graying network anchors because they find that comedy is where the most truth is expressed these days.

So I’m not going to admonish you to rock the vote. There are plenty of organizations to do that, and they have the admirable goal of bringing democracy to the people. You absolutely should vote if you decide it’s one way you can help improve society.

In the case of the less-hyped state and national legislative races, I’d even recommend it. One well-chosen senator can effect change in a way a president can’t.

But it’s not enough. In a society with such a chasm between the powerful and the masses, just marking that paper on Nov. 2 does not mean we have democracy. No, I won’t demand that you vote in the presidential election. But please, I implore you, do something.