So many can't watch news. Me too?

[becca]

So many people I know have been in a don't want to know frame of mind the last dozen or so years. Some vote some don't, but I think I'm getting to where I am going to join them. This is for both U.S. and Canada. I guess at 45 I'm not all that old but I don't remember things ever being so right vs. left like they are. Especially not in Canada! I just saw a newspaper from the province of Alberta that was really slanted to one side and until now did not know that was even possible up here. Very depressing times.

I didn't want to go into it in detail, politics/news here, just wondering if I am wrong to start to tune out. I've taken breaks but man, I am just about finished, and this just after seeing something huge in terms of progress take place in the U.S. But though that made me happy the same day they did some incredibly offensive things... one step forward two steps back. Argh! I have been fairly outspoken and active over the years in what I've felt were the right places and made some small difference along with many others. I wish I could really feel better about things by now. I can often see both or more sides of things but so many these days are hyper-reactive with long enemy lists and it seems more hopeless that people can meet in the middle. My boyfriend and I have stress over it when it comes up and we're really not that far apart... I don't know, I just want to rip up my motto that simply knowing is doing something. There is so much news everywhere now too but the quality is often bad, meant to provoke outrage. How can anyone go on being outraged about something without getting burned out. It's all the outrage that outrages me the most I think. Why does everything have to become emotional? I want politics to be boring ideally. No grand visions maybe, or legacies and so forth, just people doing the job and the right thing hopefully for the most people for the long term. Ha.

How do you deal with this part of life? Is it really as extreme everywhere as it seems to me right now? Have you ever been banned from a place because of a bunch of fanatics who didn't like your political comment?