The National Election: Our Part in Democracy or Our Complicity in Patriarchy?

Another national election is around the corner, and most of us have already evaluated which of the two major candidates we think will best serve as the President of the United States. But seldom (if ever) do we pause to evaluate the electoral machinery itself.

Does it serve us well? Does it truly reflect the voice of the people? Indeed, does serve the people at all?

Historians generally recognize that the American electoral system, like the Constitution, was designed by property holders to serve their own interests, and that it was not originally intended as an instrument of the rank and file citizen. Do we have any reason to believe this has substantially changed over the centuries and decades since?

In each election, we voters are given no viable choice but to seek solutions from the same political parties which have authored our problems in the first place. Should we not expect more from an electoral system that bears the name, democracy?

Terri Lee, of New Jersey, a co-founder of the campaign to boycott the 2012 presidential election, will discuss these questions and more. She will present the merits for an organized, principled boycott, and in so doing make the case that the system is rigged against the interests of the people. She will posit that contrary to what we have been led to believe, our participation in national elections qualifies not as our part in democracy but rather as our complicity in a system of repression.

A discussion will follow Ms Lee's talk.

For more information about the election boycott initiative: www.electionboycott2012.org