@Johnny Dangerous - You pose a false dichotomy between "dharma" and "politics". Nothing can eclipse dharma. Our practice isn't a "Sunday-only" exercise, but permeates our whole life experience. Awakening that denies the conditions of real life is not awakening. "Politics" is not about who you vote for, but is really just how humans interact with and relate to each other, so we are all "political" because we are all human. Your insistence also denies interdependence and karma, which I elaborate on in my responses to Malcolm and AlexanderS below.
It has nothing to do with Dharma being an "only sunday" thing, it is has to do (in this instance) with not turning your Dharma into distinctly samsaric activity, which is exactly what people are doing when they make Dharma practice into something that gets molded primarily by their political beliefs. Working with one's Karma is done in a lot of different ways, and it's pure rationalization to say you are working with your own Karma by trying to change the "outside" world...IMO. There are good conventional reasons to be politically active mind you, but it is typically samsaric activity - you can see this in the very way people talk about it, political activism for it's own sake by definition is not Dharma practice.
yet your language betrays you. For example, it was only when rory brought up the fact that I and she are both women that you described her responses as "shrill"
Are you serious? I have used the term on here with men too, in fact mostly with men. Do a search for "shrill" if you don't believe me, it's findable - I checked. Do your research before shooting your own projections at me like that, it's an appropriate description for the tone with which many people discuss politics - including you and Rory, IMO, but certainly not limited to you. I called her post shrill because it was, as well as being completely unproductive and seemingly intended only to snipe at others and stir the pot, I feel completely comfortable with the definition.
You are finding bogeymen where none exist. I'm so tired of this deflective, uniquely American preoccupation with extrapolating grand meaning from every little term or word. I might be married to a feminist attorney, I might be a stay at home dad raising my kids, I might have grown up in a majority Hispanic city, I might have grown up with a physical disability, and I might quite a bit different than who you have decided I am. You have no idea what kind of life I live or my relationships, and notions regarding gender, or race. Statements like that making these sweeping assumptions based on my use the word "shrill" just show you have no clue whatsoever who you are talking to, but wish to paint your own picture of them nonetheless.