I have pretty much extricated myself from the echoing horror that is American political debate. I am not an American citizen, but I have been drawn into the fray during a number of pivotal time periods. An anecdote that probably best illustrates where I am coming from is the one where I worked for a co-operative that was very socially conscious and the entire production crew took a day off work to join a protest during a visit to the nearby city by George W. Bush. They used the company vehicle and served free coffee and hot chocolate to the cold protestors. I wished them well but I stayed to do the weekly equipment maintenance.

When I looked at this liberal forum, I went to a thread about the looming threat of war with Iran. A few posts down, I saw this smiley being used repeatedly . That reflects my present feelings about US and World politics.

I generally think that discussions that involve only one side of the political spectrum tend to turn into echo chambers. I was very hopeful when I heard about HotSoup, unfortunately it sucks. Newsnation.net appears to have some very knowledgeable people contributing to the discussion. I am going to delve deeper and see if I can actually get past the head banging on wall feeling and actually get passionate about something again.