All right, so SOME people have a direct involvement in politics- sandwich would be one. An Iraqui activist, a marijuana user here, a black guy in Prince George's County- sometimes politics is important. But for most of the people on this forum, discussing it is like arguing over flood control methods while living on a mountain. Utterly silly and pointless. If Gore got elected, everyone would NOT be dead, in fact your lives would be indistinguishable from what they are now, except you might be railing against the president more or less, which is a direct result of political involvement. But unless you're directly involved in politics as a politician or an oppressed party, it's just a form of vapid entertainment. CNN is only a few shades better than Entertainment Tonight, really. Any revolt, war, etc. that occurred might necesite involvement (and might not- the Afghan war changed almost nothing here, except that your car would get stoned if you didn't have a flag on it, and revolutions are often far less sweeping than the revolutionaries would like to think), but those aren't happening, and none of the threads here in particular are dealing with revolution. Everyone's argung about pointless, inconsequential things like elections or "Democrat or Republican?", or any number of the little "issues" the armchair intellectual debates furiously while those who have to live with the outcome of the political environment live in misery. They don't have an effect on any of us, most people here (and I include myself in much of this) don't know **** about it, and arguing about it changes nothing in the least at any rate. I'm simply pointing out that it's a form of entertainment, and nothing more, so maybe people shouldn't take it so seriously.