Voting day has arrived. As millions around the country head to the polls with a clear candidate in mind, millions of others are wondering if voting still means anything. In a special address for The Marc Steiner Show, our host addresses this question with the benefit of more than 60 years of experience in activist struggle. Studio / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino Transcript The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible. Marc Steiner: Hey Folks … this is Marc Steiner, host of The Marc Steiner Show here at the Real News … We won’t be publishing a regular episode of the show today, because today, November 5, is election day. Today, Americans decide the future of our country … There has never been a more important election in my lifetime, and believe me, I’ve seen a lot of elections … The Real News is a 501c3 news organization, so we’re not here to tell anyone how to vote. But as someone who has fought for civil rights my entire life AND as someone who is painfully aware of how broken and cruel and corrupt our political system is, because I’ve been reporting on it for decades, I want to tell you why it’s still vital that you make your voice heard and vote today.  I have been involved one way or another since I was a kid who volunteered for Nixon in 1960  because as a young civil rights worker I despised the Southern Democrats who were known as the DixieCrats …. And looked at LBJ as one of them … then in 64 I was 18 year old chairman for DeBerry and Shaw, the Socialist Workers Party Candidates, at the same time working with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.. and in 68 our motto was “vote with your feet fight in the street” … then 72 as a young community organizer we turned George Wallace precincts into McGovern precincts … sort of sordid history I understand .. But this election will decide the future for some time to come. Not just at the presidential level, but at the local and state level. Up and down the ballot, there are issues at stake that will impact all of our lives and shape our immediate future and our children’s futures. We have to get out and vote .. make a stand.. As I have said for years, in the summer of 64 at least dozen civil rights workers were killed in Mississippi, along with the infamous torture and murder of Schwerner Goodman and Chaney. I knew these people. I organized in the same movement. This is not ancient history, this was real. I lived it …. People sacrificed everything 60 years ago to ensure that every American would have the right to vote and Black people will not be denied the right to vote Some are trying to take that away across this nation .. we cannot let that happen …  So if I get tired and fed up with the same political hacks, and both parties… I just remind myself of the summer of 64 and the fight for the right to vote … Take elections seriously, even if the people in power don’t take you seriously. Take them as seriously as the civil rights activists who fought and died for that right.  Join me .. get out there and vote, and then keep organizing, keep fighting. Because the struggle continues.