In response to the compelling posts by Maytha, QuiQui and Nadine, I offer my view on the question of should we vote. I personally get queasy from righteous incantations about one's duty to vote. There is no obligation to vote when the system is rigged to produce limited results. A strained political choice between does not strike me as the outcome of the principles of freedom or liberty.
I think one's democratic duty in this country is to first be informed and then act from it. Voting because everyone tells me to is a waste of a vote if it's not fully informed. Thus, slogans of "go vote!" are empty. Mine would be much less parsimonious: "get informed then act accordingly."
From that vantage point, I can respect decisions by people to check out from a political system that has produced some good (relatively high societal pluralism, some mobility, and real restrictions on state power), but much more bad (genocide, imperialism, oppression).
That said, I am also sympathetic to get-out-the-vote campaigns largely because I fear that McCain's reliance on Neoconservatives and firm footing in the crazy right-wing offers only more American scariness in foreign policy; and because there is difference among the candidates in terms of the prospects of governmental regulating the economy more fairly, and because Obama's health care plan offers wider coverage (though is far from a fix). As Rockslinga pointed out in a comment on QuiQui's post, the Supreme Court's makeup could be at stake, as well.
I do not see in Obama much hope or change so significant that I would vouch for him. Most of the country's problems and crimes will not go away. I think he has been novel in some of his thinking, but usually backtracks quick enough to leave an observer scratching one's head. Smoke and mirrors are bi-partisan.
In the absence of a boycott-the-election movement with clearly stated principles, people should vote if they are informed enough (and there are third parties worth supporting, too). We cannot have Neo-cons running US foreign policy again -- even if their liberal equivalents are only slightly better.
However, being informed also means understanding that the solution to political marginalization, in the case of Arab-Americans for example, does not lie in voting, but in organizing. The threat is that we get accustomed to thinking of political action as voting only, when in reality, it's not effective in and of itself for community empowerment. We do not have the numbers to just vote.
So vote if you like, but do not invest too much hope in actual change. And come January, begin advocating for change.
