While the winner of the 2012 race for the White House might not be known by Thursday, Nov 8th, one thing we will know is that this first post-Citizens United presidential election created a new normal in U.S. electoral politics, with unprecedented amounts of corporate cash flooding the process, creating a tsunami of SuperPAC-funded negative ads that only served to distort and disinform the public, diminishing our democracy and deterring participation.

While trading barbs on the narrow range of issues on which they differ, Pres. Obama and Mitt Romney were united in ignoring issues of critical importance to a vast majority of people, for poverty, to war and climate change.

Broadcast networks made billions during this election season, while ignoring their obligation to serve the public interest. What role does the media play in furthering this erosion of our democracy, and how can people organize to ensure that they have a responsible, representative, and responsive media, a true public media that treats our airwaves as the vital national resource that they are?

Join us for an evening of engaged discussion. Presented by Democracy Now!, Smiley & West and Haymarket Books.

By Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan, Foreword by Michael Moore