Peasant: In many instances I have never found such a closed society. One set of politics, one set of lifestyle values (or general lack thereof) and very very set in their ways. I have recently lost a good group of folk musician friends for simply defending my own particular values and philosophies.

You seem to have a real chip on your shoulder here. I'm a newcomer to the "folk environment". I've always listened to some folk-rock and "folky-ish" music but it's only in the last year, a year after I started learning (electric) guitar and at about the time I got my first acoustic guitar, that I've really got "into" folk music at the roots level.

And, as I said above, I've *never* had any indication of a requirement to adopt a particular lifestyle, or to conform to any sort of politics. Or had anyone impose on me restrictions on what I could sing or play. I can imagine that if I sang a viciously racist song, or tried to hi-jack a session to push my political views, that wouldn't go down well. I said "viciously racist" because at last night's sessions some of the "trad" songs performed were somewhat anti-Freanch, or anti-Portuguese